Alright folks, today I got this itch to fix something annoying about my blog drafts. You know what grinds my gears? When lines stretch way out across the screen. Makes reading feel like running a marathon, eyes gotta jump back and forth forever. Total headache fuel. So I decided, “Enough! Let’s make each line bite-sized.”
The Annoying Discovery
Started scrolling through my old articles. Some lines? Crazy long, maybe 50 or 60 characters including spaces. Like reading a train track! Others were super short, broken weird. Felt messy. Realized I needed a sweet spot. Not too long, not too short. Something that lets the eyes chill.
Playing With Words
Opened a fresh draft. Wrote a few sentences normally, like chatting over coffee. Didn’t count anything. Just typed. Then, I copied that chunk into a plain text editor – nothing fancy, just where I could see the actual letters and spaces.
Started manually counting:
- “I found the long lines really hurt my reading flow…” – 41! Way too much.
- “Short fragments suck too.” – 19. Not bad, but felt chopped.
Got tedious fast. Figured, “There’s gotta be a tool.”
The Counting Hack
Remembered some text editors show character count per line. Opened my draft in one. Boom! There it was, right at the bottom: showing the length for each line automatically.
Highlighted sections and watched the numbers:
- A nice descriptive line about coffee: 26 characters. Felt smooth.
- A complex thought crammed in: 34 characters. Eyes stumbled.
- Two short phrases stuck together: 17. Felt abrupt.
Saw a pattern forming between 18 and 28 characters. The sweet stuff lived there.
Making It Stick (Kinda)
Got my goal: aim for 18-28 characters per line. Tried writing fresh paragraphs while keeping an eye on that little counter below.
Wasn’t easy at first. Kept overshooting! Wrote a sentence, glanced down – “36. Dang!” Reworded immediately. Broke long sentences. Added small words. Killed some fancy vocabulary. Swapped longer words for shorter ones where it made sense without sounding dumb.
Example before:
- “The implementation of this particular methodology consequently results in…” (Way over, and sounded stiff!).
Fixed it:
- “Using this method gets us…” (21 characters. Clearer, punchier).
Took practice. Had to reread out loud. If my voice paused weird, or I ran out of breath mid-line? It was probably too long. Trimmed more.
The Finish Line Feel
After wrestling with a whole page? Saw the difference. Stuff felt lighter. Eyes didn’t tire scanning it. Had more rhythm. Natural pauses landed in decent spots.
Is it perfect? Nah. Still slip sometimes. Sometimes 30 sneaks in if it feels right. But sticking mostly in that 18-28 zone? Night and day difference reading back my own junk.
Recommendation? Give it a shot. Don’t go nuts measuring every line forever. But being aware? Helps tighten things up massively. Your readers’ eyeballs will thank you later.
