Readers are not willing to waste time on writing that wanders willy-nilly and leaves them frustrated. If you want your writing to be understood you need to be concise.
Being concise means that you say what you need to say in as few words as possible Sounds simple, right? But the truth is this can be a demanding task. Here are a few things to help you keep your prose spare and meaningful:
- Use strong verbs. Don’t say “His day went flying by…” say “His day flew….” Don’t say “She pulled the door closed to keep the intruder out…” say “She slammed the door to keep the intruder out….” You’ll also want avoid passive verbs whenever possible: “The ball was thrown” by the player, and use active ones: “The player threw the ball.”
- Get rid of redundancies. Here is an example: “remand back”: you don’t remand back because remand means “to send back.” Other instances you will want to avoid or eliminate: gathered together, close proximity, Easter Sunday, consensus of opinion, close scrutiny, absolutely necessary, totally destroyed. In each case, the only word necessary is the italicized word.
- Tighten your copy. Make “over a period of 10 years” read “for 10 years”; make “made his objection known” read “he objected”; make “he placed the blame directly on the governor’s shoulders” read “he blamed the governor.”
- Kill qualifiers and intensifiers. Don’t say “really happy” say “ecstatic.” Don’t say “very unique” say “unique.” Don’t say “truly honest” just say “honest.” The problem with qualifiers and intensifiers is that they actually accomplish the exact opposite of what the writer is trying to convey.
- Be brief. Someone once pointed out that the Lord’s Prayer contains 56 words, the Ten Commandments 297, the American Declaration of Independence 300 and the European Common Market directive on the export of duck eggs, 26,911.
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