140 Characters or Less

It's nothing new to talk about Twitter or text messaging, so I assume you know the basics of what they are and how they work. If you don't know about them, then try this. What I do want to talk about is what it can do for your writing.

Twitter gives you 140 characters and texting gives you 128. If you've ever tried to have a conversation with somebody with these, you'll find that character limit reached very quickly. Although there are shorthands you can use to save space, that's the literary equivalent of cutting off your leg to lose weight. The character limit is a restriction that helps you create within boundaries.

These systems present an excellent challenge for writers. Can you express your thought in 140 characters or less? There are a lot of ways to do so. Sometimes it's as simple as using contractions. Every time you use "you're" or "I'm", you save one character. If you only need a few extra letters, this is how you find them.

If you need a few extra words, then cut out your introductory phrases. We love to start sentences with "Hey", "You know what", "I was thinking", and so much more. Those don't add to your thought, so cut'em out. Although these phrases are natural and real, you can still sound like natural without them. This is a very important technique for writing, especially in comics, where you should try to have 15 words or less per panel.

On a bigger scale, the character limit will also help you cut through your own BS. When you want to express a thought in so little space, you avoid backstory, tangents, unrelated musings, and all the other fluff we usually add. This is a less tangible thing to talk about, so it is difficult to describe in detail. But that is exactly why you need to practice writing with these restriction: you can't learn to be concise and succinct any other way.