Size Matters (Or Does It?)

How writing short, medium, and long is the best practice

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

Last fall, I started a new column of obituaries for The New Yorker. The pieces were supposed to clock in around 1,000 words, or, ideally, a bit shorter. The New Yorker has a famous appetite for long pieces — once, a single story (John Hersey’s report on Hiroshima) took up the entire issue, and over the years there have been…

--

--

Staff writer, The New Yorker. Author of The Library Book, The Orchid Thief, and more…Head of my very own Literati.com book club (join me!)

Get the Medium app

A button that says 'Download on the App Store', and if clicked it will lead you to the iOS App store
A button that says 'Get it on, Google Play', and if clicked it will lead you to the Google Play store
Susan Orlean

Staff writer, The New Yorker. Author of The Library Book, The Orchid Thief, and more…Head of my very own Literati.com book club (join me!)