I see little correlation between reading time and article length in my stats. If anything, some shorter stories get more read time.

I suppose what is happening is that when I write something too long for what it is, readers simply skim until they get to something they’re genuinely interested in.

One thing — while fewer people read my fiction than my nonfiction, I get longer reads out of my fiction, almost always.

Not that that’s a panacea, given the smaller number of readers overall.

I guess the challenge is to catch and hold reader attention. Unnecessary words probably won’t do that!