In this article from the Politico blog, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs explains that writing for Twitter can be an incredible challenge, “It takes an amazing amount of discipline to write out all of what you want to say in 140 characters or less.”

He’s absolutely right, and I’m reminded of the famous quote from French scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal, “I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

What’s your greatest challenge in writing for Twitter? How has it changed the way you write?

2 Comments

  1. Maggie–

    So true. I find that my biggest challenge is when I have two related thoughts, with the first supporting the second. Twitter is really a one-thought-at-a-time medium. No room for compound complex sentences.

  2. Interesting – I just wrote a fun post today about being verbose and what that really means… What I did not include in my post was anything about the use of Twitter.

    What’s interesting is there is no true opposite for the word verbose in the dictionary – if there were, it would have picture of the twitter bird right next to it.

    http://www.socialpmchick.com/2010/04/will-the-real-opposite-of-verbose-please-stand-up/

    You now have me thinking even more about what I wrote – I feel another post coming on.

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