I hate hate hate that Cinematical and Joystiq posts always start with an ‘introductory paragraph’. It’s like they have a certain post- and word-count they need to hit every day, and the result is too much bla-bla-blaing.
I grabbed the intro text for the latest entry on Cinematical:
Few people today remember what Nathan Hale is famous for. Even in my home state of Connecticut, where he’s officially recognized as our State Hero, he is probably often thought of as just another one of the many Revolutionary War patriots we learned about in high school. Perhaps you have a good enough memory to link him with his most famous quote, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country” (which may have been actually ripped off from a contemporary play)? Well, don’t worry if you haven’t held on to your history book knowledge; that is what we have Hollywood for. Warner Bros. will be producing a biopic about Hale, based on M. William Phelps’ upcoming book “For the Sake of Liberty: America’s First Spy.”
Here’s how a ‘story’ should be put together: The headline has to grab your attention. The first paragraph has to knock that zinger right out of the park. From there, it’s alright if you start fleshing out the real-world complexity of the situation. But that first paragraph is all important.
Warner Bros. will be producing a biopic about Jonathan Hale, based on M. William Phelps’ upcoming book “For the Sake of Liberty: America’s First Spy.”Jonathan hale, who is a State Hero in Connecticut—my home state—is perhaps most famous for having said: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country”.
A slightly crass example perhaps, but it took us from 131 to 56 words, and the improved clarity is obvious.
And clarity. Is. Everything.
So why do I follow two sites that I obviously get annoyed at whenever I read a story on there? Because gosh-darnnit, they are pretty good otherwise. (Unlike Kataku, which is a great site, but they post about one zillion new things a day, which is impossible to keep up with).
Their problem of course, is that they have me looking at the headline, skimming the text for links, and I’m out.
That’s a problem, me thinks.
PS: I don’t mean to pick on Christopher Campbell, who wrote this particular story, because as far as I can tell—even though I don’t distinguish the writers on these blogs—they all do it.
PPS: Joystiq’s every-story-must-have-amusing-image thing is also getting on my nerves, just so you know… But I get it. It catches the eye, so it works. But it’s annoying.
I’m with you on the Kotaku thing. They need to post about 50% less things every day. Maybe have one big post for the minor things and more important things get a separate blog post or something.
It’s just depressing when you don’t have a chance to keep up with your RSS feeds for a couple of days and you see some of them are well into the hundreds. I just can’t be bothered to read that much! In invariably just hit mark as read and leave it at that. I know I’m going to miss something cool because of that but there’s a limit to how long I want to sit in from of my computer reading.
Actually a lot of it is because of word count minimums. I used to blog for a site that wouldn’t allow me to post a story unless it had at least 250 words. So if I thought it was worth posting, I had to find ways to make the minimum, even though I’m sure the readers could care less.
Less fluff, more stuff.
Actually, I’d like to begin this comment with a small introduction. First of all, what I will be saying in the paragraph to follow will be short and succinct, but I’d like to first talk about why long intros work at times. Sure, while I feel long intro paragraphs are, well, long winded and extraneous at times, they do serve a purpose otherwise. I know there’s no better way to lead your readers into what you have to say then by briefly guiding them to that point.
Which brings me to my point. Guide them all you want, but make sure it fits in with the scheme of things. If you’re reviewing a book or movie or you’re expecting to go into a lot of detail then a longer, more detailed intro paragraph would work.
However, if it’s just a news blurp or small review, then I can see what you’re saying.