Rarely is this blog concise. Should it be? I have no idea. It’s a place for a writer to dump thoughts, not necessarily a place for a reader to pick them up readily. A good author would focus on the needs of the reader and edit. For most of these exercises, that isn’t the point. With my day job, it is a requirement prior to becoming “customer facing” material. Luckily, I’m on a flight and not at work.

Good actors don’t move in a scene without purpose or intent. If you watch a seasoned actor, they behave like a statue for most of whatever moment they’re acting in, unless there is a reason to move. If they’re fidgeting, often they are trying to communicate a looming threat through concerning movements. If they’re fidgeting and there is no purpose for the behavior, they’re likely a bad actor.

I sometimes find the lack of movement in actors boring, when paired with a dialogue heavy film, this can make for an exhaustingly boring couple of hours. A director can cheat, and they often do, by giving actors fake real world tasks. Say this line while digging through a filing cabinet, this dialogue will take place while walking through a parking lot. A better director will pair another stream of information in the action, like defusing a bomb while discussing next steps in a relationship. If you want information to hit the hardest, do less, say less, just before delivering a nice, concise bit of information.

How long should a story be? How long should an article about koala’s fucking be? As short as possible to convey the information. At least that’s the general guidance, you can stretch it for art or beauty’s sake, so long as your audience is there for it.

The disconnect in this post, is that I won’t edit it, so you’re either as interested in this journey and process as I am, or you saw multiple paragraphs, so the proposed content in the beginning and are already doom scrolling your favorite social media nightmare. Luckily, I didn’t write this for the reader who is gone and I don’t care that I’ve lost them.

I’ve touched on this theme before, so I don’t need to rehash my feelings about the process. I will say that for all the trouble I’m putting you, the reader through, I do want you to understand that editing is essential. In fact, being concise is essential, because when you’re trying to grab someone’s attention in the real world, whether one on one or in front of 300 people, knowing what will engage them and keep them listening is critical.

Learn to move only with intent, like that borderline boring actor, learn to speak with the fewest words. Learn to reduce or eliminate disfluencies (stutters, stammers, filler sounds and words). When people assume you’re only speaking or moving or writing with purpose, they will be more engaged.

Same is true with writing, but this might not be that, this might be more chasing the beauty of the art, it might be poetry, it might even be a waste of everyone’s time including yours and mine. So I’ll post it now, and get back to my flight, because I’m not yet at work.