Three Minutes Writing
By Artyom Bologov
I just finished watching second season of Arcane.
One of the focal moments was this Silco's monologue.
Delivered to Jinx when she's sitting in a jail and going (even more) insane.
Killing is a cycle. One that started long before Vander and me. And it will continue long after the two of you. [...] We build our own prisons. Bars forged of oaths, codes, commitments. Walls of self-doubt and accepted limitation. We inhabit these cells, these identities, and call them "us." I thought I could break free by eliminating those I deemed my jailors. But... Jinx... I think the cycle only ends when you find the will to walk away.
It wasn't focal because it was a good monologue (it wasn't one.) Or because it coincided with episode name/topic (episode name was mostly meaningless.) It was focal because I realized: I can't understand it. I had to read it as text to digest it. Otherwise it was just white noise to me.
As I've already said, I need scrollbars to allocate attention for reading. My attention deficit is that bad. Yours is likely close to that. That's why we all need Three Minutes Writing.
As a writer, my goal is to deliver the idea. In a form I myself can understand later. Three Minutes Writing means:
- Write small paragraphs and sections.
- Add visual anchors:
- sections,
- lists,
- code listings,
- quotes.
- Keep the language simple.
- Keep the scrollbar big.
- Optimize for three minutes of reading time!
My
longer-form
writing
fails at these, and I often get comments like
So chaotic writing. I try to distill the essence from this article, but it is jumping back and forth between different topics
My sweet person, I can't focus on it either. Sorry.
So let's all focus on Three Minutes Writing instead. We need to understand each other, right?
See also Two beat style by Lu Wilson.