Each
time we use more words than we need, or a long word when a
shorter one will do, or an adjective or adverb that means
the same as the word it modifies (leisurely saunter), we drive
readers crazy. And then we drive them away. Bill Luening of
The Kansas City Star offers 20 tips for tighter writing.
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Writing
tight
In general, prefer
short words, sentences and paragraphs. Simplify your prose. Search your
copy for redundancies and clutter. Throw out every word you can without
ruining the sentence's meaning or rhythm.
Clutter, author William
Zinsser tells us, is the disease of American writing. Each time we use
more words than we need, or a long word when a shorter one will do, or
an adjective or adverb that means the same as the word it modifies (leisurely
saunter), we drive readers crazy. And then we drive them away.
When you write, assume
that your reader would rather be doing something else than drinking in
your mellifluous prose. Then assume "something else" is exactly
what he'll do if you serve him copy that is flabby and unclear.
Tips for tighter
writing
- Use an outline
every time you write. Not the elaborate Roman numeral job taught in
Ms. Quahog's English class. Just a brief list of the most important
points arranged in the logical order for telling.
- Challenge every
word. Write fast, edit slow. During the final edit, challenge each word.
If it's not necessary, throw it out. Such as not and out in that sentence.
If it's unnecessary, toss it.
- Use the active
voice. Joe slapped Nefferriti is shorter, more vigorous and more clear
than Nefferriti was slapped by Joe.
- Identify redundancies,
pleonasms (true facts) and tautologies (widow woman). How? Learn to
recognize them. Memorize them. Then zap them from your copy.
- Focus on prepositions.
If you write a sentence with more than two prepositional phrases, you
may be stuffing the sentence. Consider recasting it to eliminate a phrase
or make it into two sentences. Unless it destroys the rhythm, turn prepositional
phrases into modifiers or possessives. The stories about Kaczynski becomes
The Kaczynski stories. The house owned by Mrs. Smith becomes Mrs. Smith's
house.
- Stay conversational.
To an extent, try to write as you speak. The closer you come to your
speaking rhythms and natural word choices, the clearer and more engaging
your copy will be. Of course, written English is always more formal
and thoughtful than spoken language. Listeners will forgive a speaker's
mistakes and meanderings and "and-uhs." But a reader forgives
a write nothing. You have, after all, thought out each word, have you
not? At least that's what the reader thinks.
- Hammer adjectives
and adverbs. We write about people and things, so good writing is made
of nouns and verbs. When you run across an adjective or adverb, see
if you need it. Eliminate those that carry the same meaning as the noun
or verb: mumbled unclearly, unhappy frown.
- Keep sentences
short. Good writers average about 14 to 17 words a sentence. That doesn't
mean all of their sentences are 14 to 17 words. Nor does it mean you
should abandon the occasional long sentence. Listen to the sound of
the sentences by reading them aloud. If some are short and some are
longer, that's good. From variety comes rhythm. From rhythm comes reader
interest and pleasure.
- Avoid expanded
phrases. This point in time is an expanded phrase. Its equivalent, now,
is a fine, short word. Choose the fine, short word and substitute it
for expanded, bloated phrases.
- Watch for Latins
and Greeks. After the Normans invaded England, Latin words became preferred
by the country's royalty, clergy and scholars. Latin words were, and
still are, more formal and indirect than their dirt cheap Anglo-Saxon
equivalents. On the other hand, Anglo-Saxon, the honest language of
peasants, packs a wallop. In Anglo-Saxon, a man who drinks to excess
is not bibulous but a drunk, a man who steals is not a perpetrator,
but a thief, and a man who is follically-impaired is not glabrous, but
bald. Direct language is powerful language. Then comes Greek, the language
of science. Science is nice. Science is good. But using complicated
scientific words can make copy dense and difficult to understand. Moreover,
it can make it sound pretentious. Of course you cannot -- and should
not -- drop all words of Latin or Greek derivation from your work. Many
times they will be perfect. But first, try to think of a down-home Anglo-Saxon
substitute.
- Replace words
that end with the suffixes -ality, -ation, -ence, -ization, -ize, -ocentrism
and -wise.
- Beware overuse
of subordinate clauses, especially ones that begin a sentence.
- Read your stuff
aloud. We write for the inner ear, not the eye. If you're writing long,
you'll hear it (and likely be signaling for oxygen). If you can find
a sucker, have him read your stuff to you.
- Keep your language
specific. Don't write "They had a stormy marriage that included
many physical confrontations." Write "During their marriage,
she punched him, choked him and once kicked him down the stairs."
- Describe with
care. Description is good, but remember your Hemingway: good writing
is architecture not interior design. When you describe, be specific.
- Avoid bloated
phrases and creeping nouns. Re-cast phrases such as "mental problem
area" or "precipitation activity." Watch for them in
any use of the words "situation," "field" or "condition."
Don't let a robbery become a crime situation, or a lawsuit become a
legal situation. Don't write that people work in the legal field or
medical field when they are lawyers or doctors. Don't tell readers about
war conditions or weather conditions when war or weather do the job.
- Make sentences
positive. As Strunk and White recommended, rather than writing "He
was not paying attention to her" write, "He ignored her."
Readers want to know what happened, not what didn't happen.
- Eliminate expletives.
Rewrite any sentence you begin with "There is" or "It
is." They waste space, are wordy and usually meaningless. Recast
a sentence such as "There is no reason why he left home" to
"He left home for no reason."
- Use no qualifiers.
"May," "somewhat," "a few," "rather,"
"very," "little," "quite." Remember, again,
Strunk and White: Qualifiers suck the blood out of prose.
- Leave out adverbs,
when tense carries the meaning. "Now" in the sentence "now
playing at the Midland Theatre," for example, is superfluous.
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