Speech Patterns

I've been writing sample commercial and news copy of late, and am learning to adhere to a word count which matches a timeframe. For instance, a 60 second spot should be between 150-180 words, the common threshhold for the time alotted. When I go over that limit, I usually find myself rushing through the final fifteen seconds, or losing the vital tagline or contact information.

Writing for the SEMI, Fuller's student publication, alongside Doc Thompson's church history essays, has introduced me to print word counts, which i'd previously tended to disregard. Articles tend to carry a 500-600 word max, half a page in print, and the equivalent to three or four minutes of uninterrupted speech.

So writing involves distilling hours of musings, serious and half-joking, into a piece which, while it may look sizable in print, equates to only a few minutes conversation time. Hmmmm...