---
title: "Avoiding a sense of rambling (Voiceover)"
date: 2010-03-09
description: "Voiceover techniques   1.1 Finding a Conversational Voice in Video Tutorials   1.2 The Problem with Speaking..."
canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/2010/03/09/3-avoiding-a-sense-of-rambling-developing-a-personal-voice-in-audio-series/
---
# Avoiding a sense of rambling (Voiceover)
A lot of people feel the same way about videos. In a recent post, [Kristi Leach](http://kwritenow.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/screencasts-so-what/) explains an attitude she once held about instructional videos:

> I rarely appreciate video instructions, either–they take too long, because I'm pausing, following the step, playing, pausing again. I was having trouble imagining how videos were going to improve our help systems or fit into our schedules.

For Kristi, prior to her turnaround screencast moment, videos seemed to take too long and were difficult to follow along with in a step-by-step way.

When you write a script for a video (or when you create a general outline), you can avoid the problem of the *eternal* video -- which I refer to as a sense of rambling -- by simply keeping the video short. Don't try to cover too much ground. You can generally speak about 100 words a minute, so keep that in mind with your script. 200 words is a good length. 

If you don't believe me, when you watch videos, look at the video's time counter and note when you start losing your attention. My patience times out at about three minutes. So I always try to keep my videos at three minutes or less.

### Video Length

Guidelines for video length are somewhat controversial. Part of the problem is that video content varies dramatically. If you're watching an episode on Hulu.com, that's different from a humorous clip on youtube, which is also different from an instructional video about a software application.

[Video2zero](http://video2zero.com/ideal-length-for-web-video/) conducted a study and found the "ideal run-time for web video 2.5 - 4 minutes." [Betsy Weber](http://visuallounge.techsmith.com/2009/04/screencasting_-_what_is_the_id.html) of TechSmith says, "For the blog, my goal is usually around a 3-5 minute video."

[Brooks Andrus](http://www.brooksandrus.com/blog/2009/03/13/the-power-of-constraints-why-user-generated-web-video-needs-to-be-twitterfied/) says we should consider Twitter a model for brevity when creating videos. He explains:

> ... most [users] don't have the tools or narrative capabilities to hold the attention of an audience for any real span of time. This is especially true in the screencasting realm which is why I'd like to propose the notion of TweetCasts–120 seconds or less of webcam or screen video. That's all the time you get to make your point. If you need more time, break your content into chunks, give viewers a rest between segments and try engaging them through a different medium.

I agree with Brooks. As informal video producers, we don't have the time to implement mesmerizing Hollywood cinematic techniques to keep our audience's attention. It's better to break long segments up into little chunks. It might be good to actually keep videos at 120 seconds, as Brooks recommends. Although sometimes you need up to three or four minutes to actually explain a feature, there's no reason you can't have several videos about the same feature.

Look at how [Lynda.com](http://lynda.com) approaches their videos. The following is a breakdown of videos about PowerPoint.

![Lynda.com sample outline](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/timeshort11.png)

This approach allows the user to skip to the part he or she wants to know. For example, in the above list of videos, I viewed only the videos with the eye icon next to them. Because the videos were chunked into small units, I could skip the video content I didn't want to sit through. Small chunks give the user control and avoid the problem of never-ending rambling that I explained earlier.

### Advantages to Short Videos

Aside from maintaining the user's attention, keeping your videos short has several other advantages:

**No worries about load time.** A three-minute video rarely results in a file size of more than 10 MB. In contrast, with a 10 minute video, it could easily be 30 MB, which creates more problems when you deliver it. With large file sizes, you have to consider how to optimize the video. Do you reduce the visual and audio clarity? Do you force users to wait for it to load? Do you resort to streaming options? You don't have to worry about file sizes and load time when your video is short.