Leave imperfections, tolerate incompleteness.
I often remove up to a third of my points so that commentators could make those points. If all that’s left to say in a comment is “nice post” you’ve failed!
Last week on Lid‘s guest post (What Public Relations 1.0 Teaches Us About Business Blogging), Deb mentioned in the comments that we shouldn’t write perfect posts, because that leaves commentators no room to say anything. I agreed and said that although it didn’t feel right to deliberately leave things out, it was the right thing to do:
If people leave comments like “I have nothing else to say†you overshot the mark. Leave spaces for people to jump in. Be deliberately incomplete. It feels wrong when you do it, but it’s oh-so-right in the final outcome!
Mike Van Zandwijk in the comments asked me if I could follow-up on that, so here we are!
I don’t know who said that “It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.” I’m not even a big jazz fan, but that idea has always resonated with me, because restraint and blank spaces in any art are the key. Creativity is channeled and made into a more powerful flow by constraints (note to self: write about this more, too).
If you say everything there is to say in a blog post, well, there’s nothing left to be said, is there? You left nothing for your commentators. Oops.
So how do you do this? Plan for it. Instead of writing everything out as you’re used to, just jot down the main points you want to make. Then go back and take some out. If you can still make a decent post out of it, go for it. It still has to hold together on its own even if nobody else jumps into the blank spaces you left for them.
Another possible way is by careful word choice. I just did it right there: were you thinking there must be other possible ways besides the one I’m mentioning? 
That plants the seeds in the minds of your readers that sprouts and compels them to comment. The word “possible” (and “impossible” too) gets people to thinking.
It’s not the notes you play… it’s the notes you don’t play.
photo by Polifemus
Wow I love this, it’s very Zen. (Very wabi-sabi, too.)
I am such a compulsive explainer & overexplainer & hyperoverexplainer that this would not have occurred to me in 10,000 years. I have no idea if I can even make my brain do this, but I’ll give it a try.
@ Sonia – You know what’s funny is that I was originally going to call this wabi sabi blogging, but I thought the idea of not playing notes in music was a more applicable analogy. I love the idea of wabi sabi, but I don’t think it fits this as well.
It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play. ~Dizzy Gillespie
Found in some Copyblogger post.
@ Brian – That’s a great quote. I found a few good ones as I was researching this post (trying to hunt down the source of the quote). My favorite was from Miles and was something like, “if they look too hip, then they can’t play for shit.”
Thanks Michael for your excellent follow-up. Timely as well since I want to get rid of my crappy blog writing blues.
Amazing how you master the balance between
-nailing it down- in the first line,
“Leave imperfections”
and -opening up room- as you move forwards in your writing. Maybe it’s impossible
but I think with that style, you created the triple inverted pyramid.
Loading up my jazz collection, goodbye blues.
@ Mike – Thanks! One thing I will say for jazz: the syncopation and the oddball time signatures and other things about it (you can really tell I’m not a musician) seem to get the ol’ synapses firing.
[...] good friend Michel Martine has written Jazz Blogging – It’s the Notes You Don’t Play an excellent post in which he fiercely defends a blog post shouldn’t be perfect and [...]
I agree with you but only in part.
I agree that a post has to have something missing so the public can fill in the blanks, however, I’d say that is more in the tone of voice than in the content itself.
Since nobody will ever write a perfect post, you should not fear lack of space to do it so, but instead, fear not encouraging people to do it so.
I’ll continue as blog post
@ Guilherme – I love your post! You make valid points. My goal in writing this was to help us find a way to encourage comments, not wrestle with ideals of perfection. But it’s really interesting to me what others see in what I write or what it makes them think about. Thanks for commenting and writing a well-thought-out post in response!
I’m not bragging and I’m not making this up, but, I was a drummer for quite sometime in my youf (slang). I was playing a jazz workshop in Greeley, Colorado with a big band and Dizzy was the featured musician for a performance one night.
We were rehearsing on stage during the day when Dizzy showed up, walked over towards me, tripped, got back up, shook my hand and said, “Man, you can swing.” Unforgettable moment for me. I also smelled a breeze, ok a wind of alcohol as well.
Another great Jazz trumpeter, Clark Terry, told us when asked, do you improvise all the time when you take a solo? Don’t you play some stuff over like what you played the night before?
He replied, “Yes, when you play a solo, you’ll use some of the stuff you’re familiar with, the improvisation happens in between the familiar stuff.” Sometimes the improvisation becomes the familiar stuff and that cycle happens over and over through time.
Also, the great jazz pianist, Bill Evans said some nights he’d get up to play on the bandstand and felt like he just couldn’t play anymore, but that switch was thrown and the creative process took over because it’s been disciplined to work.
I have to say Michael that this is the best post I read this week. It really made me think and I have come to the conclusion that I can definitely learn from this.
Here I am always striving to bring the best possible post and cover everything when in fact I shouldn’t. Ouch!
@ Sonia: Your name sounds like a jazz music name and your comment about Wabi-Sabi made me laugh. Great analogy.
Good post. And a needed post for me.
I’ve read a few posts on the subject of posting partial posts. And I still don’t do it for major posts (different blog than the one linked above).
Research is a passion of mine, so maybe it’s the pain of leaving some of that hard-won research out. (?)
But maybe, just maybe, if I get mashed over the head enough, I’ll get it.
Enough to do it.
Or rather, undo it.
Jazz especially, New Orleans jazz is all about the “call and response”. You play a bit, string up some structure …so others can improvise. Play upon your “bones”. Textures, imperfections, context is created on the spot. Richness amplified.
So wabi sabi jazz.. that would be a very good tune.
Bright spot today here today. Thanks.
Good advice. I’ll try that with my blog. Just one thing: there’s no “oddball time signatures” in jazz unless you count Brubeck’s “Take Five”. Most jazz is written in four-four or three-four time. What I think the commentor means is, jazz happens on the offbeat. That’s “swing”. It’s what makes jazz, jazz.
And while we’re on the subject of jazz quotes, Louis Armstrong said, “If you have to ask, you’ll never know what jazz is.” Which, I disagree with, you’ve got to start somewhere.
Michael,
A beautiful post. Leaving some things out is something I’ve been working on since about week two of blogging. Some days I do better, some days not so much, but it’s always on my mind and this way of phrasing it really clicks for me. I’m going to remember this title for a long time.
Regards,
Kelly
The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes – ah, that is where the art resides! ~Artur Schnabel