{"id":1154,"date":"2016-03-25T10:33:56","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T21:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1154"},"modified":"2016-03-25T10:33:56","modified_gmt":"2016-03-24T21:33:56","slug":"how-long-should-it-take-to-write-800-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1154","title":{"rendered":"How long should it take to write 800 words?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MsCollins\"<\/a>Is there anything that business executives can learn from professional writers, people who write for their living?<\/p>\n

I think there is.<\/p>\n

Professional writers know that unless their writing is engaging, a lot of the people who read the first paragraph are not going to be reading the last paragraph.\u00a0 They may not even be reading the third or fourth paragraph.<\/p>\n

Professional writers also have a realistic view of how long it takes to write something that the reader will want<\/em> to read, something that will make the reader stop and think \u2013 maybe even change their mind on an important matter.<\/p>\n

Gail Collins is one of The New York Times\u2019 senior columnists.\u00a0 She writes a couple of columns a week.\u00a0 Each column is about 800 words.\u00a0 (There\u2019s an old newspaper joke.\u00a0 Question:\u00a0 What is your column about?\u00a0 Answer:\u00a0 It\u2019s about 800 words.\u00a0 Boom, boom.)<\/p>\n

Unless I totally misread a recent interview with Ms Collins, it seems that each 800-word column takes her the best part of a day to write.\u00a0 I say \u2018write\u2019, but what I really mean is write, rewrite, rewrite again, polish, and polish again.<\/p>\n

Contrast this with one of our favourite clients who thinks that half a day is almost too long to spend writing five or six thousand words.\u00a0 He has a busy schedule.\u00a0 I understand that.\u00a0 But ensuring that his readers \u2013 his customers, his potential customers, his suppliers, his business partners \u2013 read all the way to the end of the final paragraph is at least as important to his cause as Ms Collins\u2019 column is to The New York Times\u2019 cause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is there anything that business executives can learn from professional writers, people who write for their living? I think there is. Professional writers know that unless their writing is engaging, a lot of the people who read the first paragraph … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,5,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1155,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154\/revisions\/1155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}