How to write well without the common curse of "Taki writing"
Paragraphs are so last millennium, right? Actually, that couldn't be more wrong.
Many extremely "qualified"[1] writers use this one tactic. It's so simple you probably don't notice it—and it's effective, but it drives me bonkers.
I call it Taki writing. Please forgive me, but I must show you what Taki writing is:
How do you do Taki writing?
Well, you space out your sentences to the logical extreme.
Here's a bit of information.
Here's another bit of information that's related to the previous sentence. But why would I put it in a paragraph with the other sentence?
Wow! Here's another line break with another sentence!
It's exhausting to write and look at. Here's my definition:
Taki writing (noun): Writing where almost all of the sentences are purposefully indented as to avoid any semblance of paragraphs. Can also be referred to as "one-line" writing.
Why do I call it Taki writing?
Have you ever had a bag of Takis?
If not, you're missing out. They are delicious. On multiple occasions, I've ruined my entire appetite for dinner by eating 50+ Takis in less than 10 minutes. Most importantly, they're really small. It's so easy to just eat one more.
Think of each Taki as a little sentence within a larger piece of writing. If you're the writer, it's really easy to continually feed the reader Takis—since individually, the Takis are delicious and digestible.
But when the reader reaches the end of the piece, they feel unsatisfied by their "meal". This is unsurprising, because eating only Takis for dinner is not fulfilling, nor is it especially nutritious.
As a writer, it's much better to consolidate your individual lines of writing into larger components of an actual meal. Instead of feeding your reader only Takis, feed them one or two paragraphs beefy enough to qualify as a rotisserie chicken. Also, feed them a few decent-sized paragraphs so the reader can have some broccoli and rice. You can feed them a couple Takis—just don't make it their whole meal.[2]
Well, why do people (especially Twitter users) love to use Taki writing? I think (a) because it's easy and (b) because they're competing with the 1.8 second attention spans that TikTok has given an entire generation. I don't like Taki writing because:
- It looks very un-aesthetically pleasing. I really don't feel inclined to read your piece if it's just a bunch of single sentences separated by whitespace.
- It's lazy. It's much easier for me to be confident in the quality of a piece if I can tell the writer actually put some thought into structuring it, rather than pressing enter after every 1-2 sentences.
- It's hard for me to identify insights of a piece. Save your Takis (one-sentence paragraphs) for especially insightful ideas, please.
So if you're reading this and you use Taki writing, please save yourself before you fall deeper into your addiction!!! Just kidding. I just probably won't read your posts.