Less is More
© 2007 Daniel Arenson
When writing commercial fiction, I avoid unnecessary words. Some
writers are masters at constructing intricate, literary prose, and
that's great. Personally, I prefer the beauty of
simplicity. I figure that my readers are not English professors or
critics. They're people like you or me, who just want to read a
good story. They expect prose that's so easy to read, it becomes
invisible and only the
story remains.
When writing, I keep a basic guideline in mind:
Use as few words as possible.
I often rephrase my sentences several times until I find their shortest
form.
Say we're writing our Great Fantasy Epic, "The Ancient Book of Trog",
and jot down the following paragraph:
"Hesitantly, his heart racing madly, Trog picked up the book with great care. The fact is, Trog had never been so incredibly awed before.
The book was very dusty and very old."
An editor reading this paragraph will reject our novel. Why?
Because it contains too many unnecessary words. Let's examine
them.
* "picked up" -- We can instead write "lifted" and save one word.
* "with great care" -- We'll omit these words. We already
described that Trog is "hesitantly" lifting the book. Our readers
will assume he's taking care. If you absolutely must leave the
"care", at least omit the word "great." We rarely need words like "great" or "very".
* "madly" -- We'll omit this word. There is no difference
between saying "his heart racing" and "his heart racing madly". I
can also omit the word "his". The reader knows whose heart we're
referring to.
* "The fact is" -- I avoid phrases like "the fact is". They can be
omitted without changing the meaning of the sentence.
* "incredibly" -- There is no difference between being "awed" and
"incredibly awed". The word "incredibly" can be safely omitted.
* "before" -- We can omit this word without changing the meaning of the
sentence.
* "very dusty" -- I rarely use words like "very". Simply saying
"dusty" will have the same affect.
* "very old" -- This can be replaced with "ancient", and we've saved a
word.
Let's examine our original paragraph again:
"Hesitantly, his heart racing
madly, Trog picked up the book with great care. The fact is, Trog had never been so incredibly awed before.
The book was very dusty and very old."
Word count: 32
Now let's fix the paragraph based on the elements we've outlined:
"Hesitantly, heart racing, Trog lifted the book. He had never been
so awed. The book was dusty and ancient."
New word count: 19
Much better! Our paragraph is almost ready. We'll make just
two more changes:
* "been so awed" -- This sounds dry to me. If we replace it with
"felt such awe", the sentence becomes more powerful. "Feel" is a
stronger verb and draws the reader more firmly into Trog's viewpoint.
* "The book was dusty and ancient." -- This sentence seems monotone and
lifeless to me. Instead we'll write, "The dusty book was ancient,"
and save a word. This also stresses that the book's age
awes Trog, not its dust.
Final paragraph:
"Hesitantly, heart racing, Trog lifted the book. He had never felt
such awe. The dusty book was ancient."
Final word count: 18
Our paragraph is now almost half its original size. Amazing. Our
final version says the same thing, but see how much better it reads.
Now we need only go over the rest of our 700-page epic, giving each
paragraph the same treatment. Piece of cake!
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