Write Tight
Posted June 22, 2001
In 1979, William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White put out a handy little book called The Elements of Style. It rapidly became a classic. It's short and well-organized. I wish all my clients would read this (and Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages) before they submitted manuscripts to be edited.
I want to talk about Rule 17: Omit needless words. If the "Strunk and White album" has had a hit single, this is it. Following this one rule will noticeably improve your writing. It doesn't mean you have to curtail that urge to ramble around the bush. If the rambling is interesting and not a distraction from the forward motion of your piece, go for it.
What it does mean is every word in a sentence needs to have a purpose.
Now, as a writer, you might sometimes want to include words such as the "now" at the beginning of this sentence that your picky English teacher would attack with her hungry red pen. I used it to make the tone more conversational, more intimate. If in doubt, ask yourself why you want to use a word. Pay attention to it on your read-through (preferably done aloud) and make sure it does what you intend.
Avoid redundant phrases such as:
The reason for this is because.
Or
In my opinion, I have always felt
Other redundancies are subtler:
He always had his dinner at six o'clock every evening.
* He always had HIS dinner. Who else's dinner is he always going to have?
* Every evening and always convey the same information.
* Since he probably doesn't make a habit of having dinner at six in the morning, in the evening is redundant. If, however, the action were a walk, you would need to establish a.m. or p.m.
And and but at the beginning of a sentence are usually superfluous. The rule "Don't begin a sentence with a conjunction" can be broken, but with care.
"She stands on the pedals, wiggles her knees, and stretches her legs. Wayward strands of sweat-damp blond hair flutter out from under the edge of her helmet. She swings her head from side to side, searching for something -- anything -- that looks even vaguely familiar. And then, The Moment! She sees him.*
The above is an example where and at the beginning (of a fragment, actually) works. Coming on the heels of a longish narrative, it creates a sense of drama. In general, however, it is best to refrain from beginning a sentence with a conjunction. If you need coordination, use the comma or semi-colon and combine with the previous sentence. I have to admit that in my personal writing, I tend to start sentences with conjunctions. If this is also the case with you, don't worry about it the first time through. Let your thoughts flow as they will; then go back and edit.
Watch those adverbs and adjectives!
He slowly meandered through the frigid chill of a bright, sunny winter's day.
Meander implies slow; a chill is by nature frigid; and sunny days are bright.
Avoid long strings of adjectives or adverbs.
"He stumbled along the winding, dusty, rut-filled, tree-lined dirt road," is just plain inelegant. If your context demands an adjective, pick the one that is most important or most evocative. Adjectives and adverbs are best used sparingly and selected wisely.
"He took from the large, double-doored oak closet his favorite blue shirt and proceeded to fasten the pearly white buttons one at a time from top to bottom, at which point he reached for the fourteen carat gold cufflinks that Emily had given him for Christmas, and taking them from the Ethan Allan nightstand of the bedroom set he was still paying off, inserted them, with fumbling fingers, into the slits on either crisply starched cuff.
One of the biggest sources of needless words in the stuff I edit is superfluous description. The paragraph above is a helluva detailed account of the character's experience with getting dressed, but do we care?
Saying that "He buttoned his shirt with fumbling fingers" is great way to express that he was clumsy or nervous or in a hurry; and if money problems are affecting his state of mind, you might want to include his thoughts about owing on the bedroom set. If, however, you are merely getting the detective out the door so he can solve the crime, none of it may be necessary. I have edited novels where every time any character entered any room, the reader was given a detailed description of each chair and doily; any time characters met over dinner, the essential conversation was preceded by a blow by blow of what was on all the plates.
Description is wonderful, and its skillful use will draw your readers in. Overdosing on description, however, will have them skimming through an ocean of unnecessary words. It bogs down the story, requires readers to absorb a lot of useless material, and deprives them of the opportunity to use imagination.
Warning! Rule 17 is about editing. Do NOT attempt to discipline your first draft with it, as you will probably find it constipating. Often several reads will still miss things. Editing one's own work is very difficult, because we lack objectivity about our own stuff.
For your edification, here's some of what I whittled from this in the THIRD re-write:
· It's short, SWEET, and well-organized.
· Following JUST this one rule will noticeably improve your writing.
· make sure it does what you intend IT TO DO.
· superfluous description THAT DOESN'T FURTHER THE STORY.
· Since he probably doesn't make a habit of having dinner at six in the morning, IN THIS SENTENCE, "in the evening" is redundant
· Let your thoughts flow as they will; then go back and edit OUT THE INITIAL
CONJUNCTIONS."
· any time any character WENT INTO any room (Changed to "entered.")
· a COMPLETE blow by blow
I probably could have slid any of these by you, but their cumulative effect would have made the writing less tight. Wordy writing is like a mantel cluttered with knick-knacks. Even if they are all beautiful, the overall result is clutter. Often, less is more.
*From a novel-in-progress by my computer guru Hank Mishkoff, who loves beginning sentences with conjunctions. <g>
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