How-To: Economy Writing

“Omit needless words,” William Strunk, Jr. advised in The Elements of Style. “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words…for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines.”

This advice is like a writer’s hazing. How do you know which words to cut? You rip out every word that might not be needed, and suddenly your draft is a mess.

I don’t know, officer. They said, “omit needless words,” and I just lost it.

In Keys to Great Writing, Stephen Wilbers explains how to obliterate the crap sinking your sentences. There are fourteen techniques (double digits? really Steve?), but he divides them into three easy categories. It’s like winning the writer’s lottery!

Never shall I write “pink in color” again!
(Image courtesy of posterize/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

1. You Already Said That
Wilbers’s first category urges eliminating redundant words. You know, things like terrible tragedy, heavy in weight, true and accurate. When isn’t a tragedy terrible, anyway?

Condense. If you’re using six words to say “because,” just say because. Do you really need that “very” there? Does extremely happy sound as good as ecstatic? No? Right.

2. Get to the Point
Is that first sentence/word/paragraph really needed? Does it change anything if you take it out? No? Get rid of it.

Be equally merciless with the ends of sentences. You want to get in a good last word, don’t you? Don’t you?

3. Shut Up

“I am of the opinion that cake is delicious.”

“Cake rocks my socks!”

These sentences say the same thing, only sentence one sucks. Use action verbs. Keep personal commentary to yourself. If someone “does not like” something, can’t they just like it instead?

Remember: If it annoys you when someone does it in person, don’t do it in writing. It’ll just annoy someone else.

[This post is taken from my "professional" blog, aewrites.wordpress.com]