Do 'text walls' scare off readers?
A comment on a recent question of mine claims
Right, so that's [large unformatted text blocks scaring off some readers in certain contexts is] a myth. This is how I know: Harry Potter. Big long books. Lots of text. Lots of readers. People come to SE for text. They are not scared of it. But they are information foragers. If your text does not have the scent of the information they are looking for they will quickly move on. Make sure your text is leading the reader the direction they want to go and is making steady progress. (But do keep your paragraphs short. Easier to read on screen.)
This was surprising to read. Multiple people throughout my life who've been quite interested in the content of short, nonfiction pieces I've written have requested that I avoid 'text walls' in the future. While the density on the page was not problematic for them once they actually read the piece, they had significantly delayed reading it because of the lack of paragraphing and other formatting.
Is the so-called 'text wall' really a thing? Is it true that in some contexts, large blocks of unformatted text can scare off readers before they start reading? Or is there actually no such phenomenon?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/26899. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
4 answers
"Text wall" is a term that describes user-generated content in internet forums or on social media sites that take longer to read than the average eight second attention span of internet users.
The common reply to a "text wall" is "TL;DR". I never read more than the question title on this site and have never read any of Mark Baker's answers.
There is no such thing as a "text wall" in a book.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26917. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Almost anything will scare off some readers in some contexts. That does not make them wrong things. It just makes the things that appeal to one person more than another. No work of art or communication should strive to appeal to anyone other than its natural audience.
If someone is looking for videos, text will scare them off.
If people are looking for short easy answers, long answers will scare them off (even if a long answer is needed).
The point is, there is a place for large blocks of text. If you are using a large block of text when a large block of text is appropriate, it is fine. It won't scare off someone who is looking for a substantial written answer.
It is generally a good idea to break text into fairly short paragraphs, particularly on line. This seems to make text easier to read. The definition of a paragraph is fuzzy at best: "a distinct section of a piece of writing, usually dealing with a single theme and indicated by a new line, indentation, or numbering." How big is a theme? Themes are fractal, bigger theme are made up of smaller themes. Paragraphs are therefore quite and arbitrary unit, and they have been getting steadily shorter over the last couple of centuries.
What you do need to be aware of, though, is information scent. Readers on the web have a wealth of sources available to them and this encourages them to make quick decisions about a page and move on quickly if it does not meet their needs. This means that you need to establish what is called "information scent". Stack Exchange is full of information scent clues.
Questions create information scent. Upvotes create information scent. If a user is looking for a piece of code they can copy, code blocks create information scent.
A block of text gets its information scent from its context and from its opening sentence. If the information scent continues to grow as the reader moves on, they will keep reading. If the information scent flags or is never established, they will stop. A block of text may not have as strong an initial information scent as a video, a diagram, or a code block. This does not make text blocks scary, it just means it needs to do a good job of being focused and on target. If a block of text is the right vehicle for saying what needs to be said, then use a block of text.
If you are an advertiser, you might decide to use a picture or a video to try to grab the attention of an unmotivated reader. Unmotivated readers are not likely to be drawn to large blocks of text. This is probably where the idea of the "text wall" came from. But it turns out that long form content actually works better for content marketing purposes than pictures of kittens. Why? Because it attracts motivated readers.
A motivated reader is not scared by a block of text if there is a reasonable indication that that block of text contains the information they are looking for. There are different rules for essayist and novelists than there are for carnival barkers. We should not be dragged down to the lowest common denominator of communication.
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Harry Potter is not a wall of text. It uses line breaks, paragraphs, headings and chapters. thats the opposite of a "wall of text", which simply means "a lot of text without formatting, line breaks, paragraphs or any typesetting whatsoever".
As long as you properly format your answers, long answers are not bad in any form.
Start with a short summary of your answer - bring the main point across in the first paragraph. Then use subsequent paragraphs to elaborate on that. Finish with a conclusion that brings you back to the start.
Use formatting where appropriate. Do not overuse bolding. Split your text in paragraphs. Use headlines or taglines where appropriate.
If you do all of the above, your answer will not be a wall of text. It will be easy to follow. People will be able to read your introduction and can then decide wether they will embark on reading further (through the parts of your answer where you elaborate) or if your answer doesn't apply / doesn't interest them.
For comparsion, this is my own answer as Wall of text:
Harry Potter is not a wall of text. It uses line breaks, paragraphs, headings and chapters. thats the opposite of a "wall of text", which simply means "a lot of text without formatting, line breaks, paragraphs or any typesetting whatsoever". As long as you properly format your answers, long answers are not bad in any form. Start with a short summary of your answer - bring the main point across in the first paragraph. Then use subsequent paragraphs to elaborate on that. Finish with a conclusion that brings you back to the start. Use formatting where appropriate. Do not overuse bolding. Split your text in paragraphs. Use headlines or taglines where appropriate.If you do all of the above, your answer will not be a wall of text. It will be easy to follow. People will be able to read your introduction and can then decide wether they will embark on reading further (through the parts of your answer where you elaborate) or if your answer doesn't apply / doesn't interest them.
As you can see, its much harder to read when not properly formatted. Thats what people critizise when they complain about "wall of texts" (at least in the context of internet platforms).
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There are two kinds of density of text. It is common to find one author (e.g. Karl Marx) writing text that is dense in both senses, but let's tease the two types apart:
One way of making text dense is to write long, convoluted sentences that the reader has to go back over one or more times to figure out.
Another way is to have long paragraphs, perhaps spanning more than one page!
The extreme opposite to density type #2 is the bulleted list -- think of how text is laid out in how-to books such as ____ for Idiots.
I have proposed an edit to your question that shows how I edit papers in the social sciences. I try to honor the idea the author is trying to get across, but make it so the reader can "get" it on the first pass. I think that comparing your original version and the edited version may make it easier for you to understand what I'm saying about convoluted sentences.
Original:
This is surprising to me as I have had requests from multiple people throughout my life who seem quite interested in the content of something (short and non-fictional) I've written that I avoid text walls in the future as, while the various things were not problematic to read once they began, they significantly delayed reading it because of the (lack of) formatting and the correlated perceived density of the text.
Edited:
This was surprising to read. Multiple people throughout my life who've been quite interested in the content of short, nonfiction pieces I've written have requested that I avoid 'walls of text' in the future. While the density on the page was not problematic for them once they actually read the piece, they had significantly delayed reading it because of the lack of paragraphing and other formatting.
My editor (my spouse) has helped me shorten and simplify my sentences over the years, without sacrificing the complexity of my ideas by telling me regularly, "Think Hemingway."
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