Clicking and scrolling is so 2010. Now a writer and media inventor has created a new storytelling format that takes advantage of mobile screens to let people tap through a story.

BIG FISH “Fish,” a “tap essay” by Robin Sloan, may change the way we tell stories on mobile devices.

Call it a tap essay, sort of a slide show or multiple-page greeting card for the iPhone. Readers use their fingers to tap their screens to move the story forward.

That’s right: forward. Never back.

Linear storytelling reduces distractions.

That’s one of the constraints laid out by Robin Sloan. He’s the San Francisco-based writer and inventor who created the tap essay. Among the “rules” of tap essays, readers:

• Can’t go backwards
• Don’t follow links
• May tweet some phrases

The only thing the reader controls is the pace.

Because of these navigational limitations, the tap essay reduces the distractions of the Web. And, because you can see only one screen at a time, it enforces the linear narrative even more than print does.

Check out Sloan’s essay for yourself.

Like an online slide show

I was reminded of the tap essay while working with the University of Michigan Alumni Association last month. Michigan’s digital media library includes slide shows like A season of Twisters.

Think of tap essays as online slideshows with a twist.

GIVE IT A TWIST The tap essay is similar to an online slideshow, like this one from the University of Michigan.

Tap it out on Tapestry.

Now you can create your own tap essays or read others for inspiration on Tapestry, a new iPhone app.

CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH Tapestry created TxTPals, a new tap essay inspired by Sloan’s “Fish.”

Give it a go.

June writing contest: Please send me your tap essay. I’ll send a little gift to the person with the best one.

Social Media Writing Boot Camp

More and more companies, communicators and CEOs are using Twitter and other social media to reach customers, clients and colleagues; research markets and trends; and sell their products, services and ideas.

But social media is more like a cocktail party than a press release. Write status updates that sound like they were produced by a corporation — or even a public relations pro — and you’ll soon find yourself socializing with the chips, not attracting new friends and followers.

In this session, you’ll discover how to make your blog postings, tweets and other status updates more relevant, valuable and interesting to your readers.

You’ll learn how to:

• Use the 70-20-10 rule for engaging your followers, plus other tips for making sure your status updates are welcome guests, not intrusive pests.
• Pass the “who cares?” test and four other techniques for becoming a resource, not a bore, on social media.
• Get retweeted. Five steps for expanding your influence and reach on Twitter.
• Tweet like the FBI. Write dramatic, compelling status updates that draw followers and get clicks.
• Make your posts personable. There’s a reason they call it “social” media.
• Tweak your tweets. Get your message across in 140 characters or less. Plus, learn how to make 140 characters go further — and when you must come in under the character limit.

Want to bring Social Media Writing Boot Camp to your team? Contact Ann.

Last month, I challenged you to model my favorite city magazine, Portland Monthly, and write a one-sentence story. Models included:

“News that Powell’s Books and Rogue Ales are collaborating on a beer infused with actual pages of Moby Dick raises the troubling prospect of 50 Shades of Grey-flavored absinthe.”

“Yamhill’s new high school viticulture program easily trumps the self-taught alcohol curriculum offered at most high schools.”

“History’s most depressing souvenir knickknack arrives: the newly released Portland skyline rain globe.”

Thirteen of you rose to the challenge. Here are the best of the bunch.

Familiar favorites

Two writers submitted favorite one-sentence stories written by others.

Skip Colcord, a communicator in Taunton, Mass., shares the best lead sentence he’s ever read. It was atop a feature story on illegal distilleries that still exist in remote areas of Pennsylvania:

“The moon still shines on the moonshine stills in the hills of Pennsylvania. “

Skip, I wish you could remember who wrote it, too!

Debora R. Murphy, manager of employee engagement at Ag & Turf Supply Management, shares a pithy, if familiar, tagline:

“Nothing runs like a Deere.”

A brief sports story

Alejandro (Alex) Morones, tech writer / editor III at The University of Texas at San Antonio’s Office of Information Security, summarizes a sports story in 38 words:

“The upstart Golden State Warriors ran roughshod over the bewildered San Antonio Spurs for 44 regulation minutes, only to have their victory party spoiled in the second overtime period by the almost-scapegoat, yet somehow last-second savior, Manu Ginobili.”

Ouch! Short and tart

George Dudley, communications specialist for the N.C. Department of Public Safety Communications Office, responded to an egregious math error in our latest issue with this one-sentence story:

“A ‘disease that kills 1,286 people out of every 1,000’ kills everybody and then some.”

Much as it hurts to laugh, George, I do love this one.

And the winner is …

Sheri Booms Holm, communications director for West Central Initiative, packs alliteration and an extended metaphor into a 20-word business story:

“Business incubators help hatch new ideas and give fledgling firms a chance to test their wings in a nurturing environment.”

Congratulations, Sheri! While I’d love to offer you a job at Portland Monthly, I will send you something else I love from my new hometown.

Cut Through the Clutter

Want to make every piece you write easier to read and understand?

• Get it off your desk: Invite Ann’s team in to handle a special writing or editing project.
• Polish staff skills: Bring Ann to your organization for a Cut Through the Clutter workshop.
• Boost your own abilities: Work with Ann to cut the clutter in your own copy in one-on-one writing coaching. Or find out about Ann’s next Cut Through the Clutter webinar.
•  Learn more: Read Ann’s Cut Through the Clutter manual. And get free writing tips every month when you subscribe to our e-zine.
• Join the club: Get the whole story in the latest issue of Rev Up Readership. And find dozens of Cut Through the Clutter tipsheets on RevUpReadership.com.

I get the most retweets when I tweet on Monday. But I tweet most often on Tuesday. Maybe I should make a change?

Thank you, RetweetLab!

RetweetLab is the latest free tool from the cool kids at HubSpot. You can use it to find out what techniques work best for your own tweeting strategy, not just in general.

Type in your Twitter handle, and RetweetLab analyzes and gives you a dozen analytics on your tweets. This look at what’s working for you vs. what you actually do reveals insights for getting the most out of your Twitter presence.

Here’s what RetweetLab had to say about my tweets:

Day of the week

The sprocket shows which day of the week @AnnWylie gets the highest retweets per tweet. Right now, @AnnWylie sends the most tweets per hour (25.04%) on Tuesday.

Time for a change!

Hour of day

The sprocket indicates which hour of the day @AnnWylie gets the highest retweets per tweet.  Right now, @AnnWylie sends the most tweets per hour (11.14%) at 12 p.m. Eastern time.

OK, friends: Who’s up at 1 a.m. reading my Twitter feed?

Reading grade level

The sprocket shows the reading grade level at which @AnnWylie gets the highest retweets per tweet.  Right now, the average reading grade level for @AnnWylie is 5.23.

Maybe I should aim a little higher, given my super-literate readers.

Sentiment

The sprocket shows the sentiment level at which @AnnWylie gets the highest retweets per tweet. Negative numbers are negative, positive are positive.  Right now, the average sentiment score for @AnnWylie is 1.54.

I’ve been accused of being irritatingly cheerful. Sounds like I need to be a little more morose on Twitter.

Capitalization percentage

The sprocket shows the percentage of capital letters at which @AnnWylie gets the highest retweets per tweet.  Right now, the average percentage of capital letters for @AnnWylie is 7.78.

Most retweetable words

The most retweetable words for @AnnWylie are:

Hey, Grandma, let’s go to Harvard and text Tim Burnett!

Hashtags

The bar graph below indicates the effect of hashtags by @AnnWylie on retweets per tweet.  Right now, 89.86% of tweets from @AnnWylie do not include hashtags.

I’d say this is interesting, but not necessarily actionable, given the small sample size.

Quotations

This bar graph indicates the effect of quotes by @AnnWylie on retweets per tweet. Right now, 88.96% of tweets from @AnnWylie do not include quotes.

Again, this is probably too small a sample to base a decision on.

Calls to action

This bar graph below shows the effect of calls to action (like “please retweet,” “please rt,” and “retweet if”) by @AnnWylie on retweets per tweet. Right now, 100% of tweets from @AnnWylie do not include CTAs.

I’m not one to ask for the retweet. But this is a good reminder that that might be a variable in Twitter success.

Questions

This bar graph shows the effect of questions by @AnnWylie on retweets per tweet. Right now, 79.17% of tweets from @AnnWylie are not questions.

I’m more declarative than interrogatory, for sure. But then, what do you think about this result?

Check out RetweetLab today.

Find out how you might tweak your tweets.

Move your audience to act

Want to deliver copy that gets read?

• Get it off your desk: Invite Ann’s team to handle a persuasive writing or editing project.
• Polish staff skills: Bring Ann to your organization for a Think Like a Reader workshop.
• Boost your own abilities: Work with Ann to think like a reader in one-on-one writing coaching. Or find out about Ann’s next Think Like a Reader webinar.
• Learn more: Read Ann’s Think Like a Reader toolkit.
• Join the club: Find dozens of persuasive writing tipsheets at RevUpReadership.com.

Size does matter.

All things else being equal, your readers would rather read a short piece than a long piece.

Of course, all things are never really equal. Given more space, you can do a better job of making your copy more valuable and entertaining, which encourages readership.

But all things else being equal, your readers prefer a short piece to a long piece.

Here’s evidence that readers want less:

THE SHORT AND THE LONG OF IT More people read further when the story is shorter than longer.

The shorter the story, the more they read.

The longer the story, the more quickly readers stop reading.

That was one of the findings the “father of communication studies,” Wilbur Schramm made in this 1947 study of newspaper readers.

For the study, he interviewed 1,050 readers about what they read, how much and why they stopped.

He found that:

• A nine-paragraph-long story lost three out of 10 readers by the fifth paragraph.
• A shorter story lost only two.

Bottom line: Length itself affects readability.

Cut Through the Clutter

Is your copy easy to read? According to communication experts, that’s one of the two key questions people ask to determine whether to read a piece — or toss it.

Fortunately, academics have tested and quantified what makes copy easy to read. Unfortunately, that research virtually never makes it out of the ivory tower and into the hands of writers who could actually apply it.

But in Ann’s Cut Through the Clutter writing workshop, you’ll learn “the numbers” you need to measurably improve your copy’s readability. Specifically, you’ll learn:

• How long is too long: For your paragraphs? Your sentences? Your words?
• Three ways to shorten your copy — and which is the most effective way
• How to cut your copy before you’ve even written the first word
• How to avoid causing your reader to skip your paragraphs
• A tool you can use (you probably already have it, but you might not know it) to quantifiably improve your copy’s readability
• A seven-step system for making your copy clearer and more concise

Want to bring Ann’s Cut Through the Clutter writing workshop to your team? Contact Ann.

___

Source: William H. DuBay, Readers, Readability, and the Grading of Text (PDF), Impact Information (Costa Mesa, California), 2007

Now you can get all the tools you need to write better, easier and faster — for less than the price of a good pizza each month.

Silver membership

REV UP READERSHIP Learn tricks and techniques for getting the word out — for as little as $17 a month.

If you like this e-zine, you’ll love Rev Up Readership — our monthly newsletter that’s brimming with writing tools and tipsheets. It’s like a half-day writing workshop delivered to your e-mail inbox each month.

Now you can get a year’s subscription for just $17 a month.

Gold membership

In addition to the newsletter, Gold members have access to more than 2,000 tipsheets packed with:

• Tips, tricks and techniques for improving your writing. (These are how-to’s — not just what-to’s)
• Updates on current communication research that will help you stay up-to-date in your writing and sell your approaches to your approvers
• Award-winning communications to model
• Plus, Gold members get Visual Thesaurus, the “remarkably inventive and interactive way to explore language” (PC magazine). Use it to find just the right word, create a great twist of phrase or write the perfect headline.

Now you can get all the tools in the RevUpReadership.com toolbox for just $25 — less than the price of a new hardback book — a month.

Join now.

Alas, I can’t invite you to the in-house seminars I present for private organizations.

COME ALONG FOR THE RIDE Catch Ann at one of her upcoming workshops.

But everyone’s invited to these upcoming public seminars in:

• Louisville on Oct. 23.  Catch Your Readers, a one-day workshop for the Kentucky Association of Government Communicators
• New York City on June 26. Now They SEE It, a one-hour breakout session for the 2013 IABC World Conference
• New York City on Dec. 2. Write for the Web, a full-day workshop for PRSA
• Philadelphia on Oct 23. Write for Social Media, a half-day pre conference session for the PRSA World Conference
• San Francisco on June 6. Catch Your Readers, a one-day workshop for PRSA
• Tacoma, Wash., on Aug. 14. Catch Your Readers, a half-day workshop for PRSA Puget Sound
• Your own home or office, on June 18. Make Your Copy More Creative, a one-hour webinar for PRSA

Would you like to attend? Please contact meeting planners directly for details.

Can’t make these events? If you’d like to bring me in for a workshop at your organization, contact me.

Save money when you piggyback your workshop by scheduling it when I’m already “in the neighborhood.” Book your program the day before or after another organization’s and split my airfare and ground transportation with the other group.

Ask about piggybacking on my upcoming engagements in:

• Austin, Texas: Nov. 7
• Louisville: Oct. 16
• Minneapolis: Oct. 9
• New York City: June 26, Dec. 2
• Philadelphia: Oct. 23
• San Francisco: June 6
• Tacoma, Wash.: Aug. 14
• Washington, D.C.: June 27

Save even more: Ask about my communication association discounts and second-day fee reductions.

Contact me to discuss piggybacking.

• Presenting writing workshops for PetSmart Charities, Materion, Osborn & Barr, Turf & Ornamental Communicators Association (TOCA) and IABC Phoenix
• Editing PetSmart Charities Web pages
• Consulting with Exxon/Mobil to refresh its intranet
• Providing one-on-one writing coaching for VSP

• Twitter
• Facebook
• ComPRehension, PRSA’s blog of public relations strategies and tactics
• Wylie Communications feed, click RSS
• Wylie’s Writing Tips