Have I mentioned we don’t read much? One of the greatest mistakes in church communication, especially in newsletters, is length. Verbose preaching. Wordiness. If the article is too long, the average reader won’t give it a glance.
And so we continue on with Church Newsletter 202, with a focus on maintaining the reader’s attention.
Writing for a newsletter is different than writing for other media. Articles must be short and give immediate information. Unless you’re an extremely fascinating writer—and most of us are not—your article is too long after 350-400 words.
Write tight, cut the clutter
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Maximum sentence length: 15 words
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Maximum paragraph length: 45 words
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Eliminate unnecessary “that” and “of” words
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Edit the whole artice, then each paragraph and finally each sentence. Cut, cut, cut.