The average post on Casting Across runs around 600 words. That isn’t a lot. That is like a few pages of a book. (Books are like websites that people have printed out and stapled together and you don’t need wifi to read.)
Why keep it short? Well, I don’t spend a lot of time reading stuff on the internet. Consequently, I don’t expect you to spend a lot of time reading stuff I write on the internet.
Sometimes the thoughts I have rattling around in my head or jotted down on a notepad exceed 600 words (notepads are like word processors… never mind). My solution to this has always been to break the topic down into component parts. “I want to write about a trout,” I’ll say. “But the trout deserves, like, at least 1,000 words to describe adequately.” What a dilemma. “Oh! Monday I’ll write about the head and the pectoral fin, and Wednesday I’ll write about the dorsal fin and the tail!” Genius.
Recently I did this as I drew parallels between barbecue and fly fishing. That wasn’t my first faux long form rodeo. In fact, there are two other pieces on Casting Across that blow past the 600 word finish line. Have more than a minute? Want some real narrative juice and emotional progression? Looking to kill time getting your oil changed?
Read these two series:
This is a four-parter in which I give the quasi-disastrous play-by-play of an ill-fated guided Italian fly fishing trip. There are high speed highway antics, big brown trout, and mushrooms.
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Currently there are seven parts to this series. The first six are a “chapter,” and the seventh begins a presently unfinished second part. Got it? It chronicles my attempts to catch fish, then trout, then wild trout, then native trout close to home.