Usually, short writing isn’t thorough.
And thorough writing isn’t short. But there’s a way to marry the two. This is my process:
- Commit to a final word count (say, 318 words).
- Brain dump a 4X first draft (1272 words).
- Cut the first draft in half (636 words).
- Cut the second draft in half (318 words).
Take it a sentence at a time, using a few pointed questions to help guide your editing decisions. Ask yourself:
“Does this edit express the same idea, but faster?”
If you can say the same thing in fewer words, you’ve made your writing better.
“It’s my ambition,” said philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.”
Let this be your ambition, too. Fetishize brevity.
“Is this word absolutely necessary?”
Every syllable should be purposeful, necessary to make your point or create imagery or conjure emotion. Anything else is fat. Trim it as though you’re being paid a day’s wage per word.
“Writing is 1 percent inspiration,” said actor Louise Brooks, “and 99 percent elimination.”
Be draconian. Your severity will be rewarded.
“Do I really like this?”
As a writer, you are also your work’s first reader. So you must pay attention to how you feel about this word or that sentence—and you must trust yourself when something sounds strange to you, off. You must key in on your emotions, your gut, because if it doesn’t move you, chances are it won’t move someone else. You must affect yourself first.
“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader,” said poet Robert Frost. “No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
This is true, of course. And it happens to be an excellent way to detect and omit needless passages.
Do it enough and this process will become second nature, automatic.
And automatically writing this way—short, but thorough—is an invaluable skill, especially as a copywriter.
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