Five-Hundred Words Just Ain’t Enough!

Years ago when I was learning about this new digital medium that people like to call blogging I was continually bombarded with articles and titles of articles suggesting, no almost demanding, that a digital article, blog entry, or any form of writing on the web should be limited to 500 words. I’ve seen it stated time and time again, heck if you even ask Google this is what you get . . .

My first reaction is oh my gosh, if that’s all it takes for online writing is 500-word articles then I’m in. I can produce those in my sleep, with hands tied behind my back, and more than several times a day, or so I thought. That was the best part about the 500-word limit, it was nonintimidating, short, quick, easy. In theory, it holds true . . . But in reality, it just doesn’t hold up, why? Because I tried it and if you are sharing or creating anything worth value it must be well defined. To have a subject that is well defined, you must give it more than 500 words, I tried, I mean I actually tried . . . and I very seldom can make it work, well only on days like today. Yes, I like to clutter up my writing with excessive verbiage. It is a fault and yes sometimes I just like to ramble on. I do agree with other writers to “trim it out, if it doesn’t make a necessary contribution to the piece,” it’s just that 500 words are not enough words to say anything at all, heck look at my word count I’m over halfway there now.

For a writer like me the 500-word rule just can’t apply, and I know what the supporters say which is usually two things…