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This may seem amusing as my previous post ([Ten Years of Twenties]) was a great wall of text, but I do have the ability to write concisely. I felt it was necessary to do a post like this to help reign in my future work. I’ve used this skill very little since graduating from college, but I still remember how. I’ll share a few tips so you can do it too! Be Ready to Work Writing concisely can be difficult, as you have to think about the words that you use and how much impact they will have. When you are given a limitation, get as close to it as you can to make the most out of it. I’ve given myself a 500-word maximum limit on this article (not including headers), which is normally my minimum limit for posts. It’s taking more effort to condense my ideas, but it’s also a nice challenge to tackle again. Eliminate Excess Words There are two things you don’t need when writing concisely: adjectives and prepositional phrases. When you’re writing something that requires brevity, you’ll want to trim the fat wherever possible. To give an example: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” can be shortened to “The fox jumps over the dog”. It’s not as exciting to read, but it leaves more to the imagination and gets the point across. Also, do your best to keep obvious statements and tangents out of your work. Find a Smaller Word Having a large vocabulary is useful for creative writing, but finding the most widely-known word works best for being concise. A thesaurus is thought to be useful in finding more colorful words, but it does work both ways. This is the hardest task for me, as I majored in the Humanities and being wordy was encouraged. I also have a love for language and like to use variations of words whenever I can. This is making the article even harder, as the largest word for what I’m expressing will show up, but I know that I can’t use it. Don’t Undercut Yourself When working on an article with a word limit, don’t overlook themes that would add quality to your writings. You may end up getting rid of something that should have stayed. Only take out themes that aren’t useful for your work. Break Up Your Ideas Writing one or two short paragraphs broken up by headers will get across the themes you want to express. It also makes things more readable, as few people like to read giant blocks of text. They do have their place in creative writing, but never in a shorter work. Proofread I do this with all of my posts while I’m writing them and a couple times after I’m done, but it’s more important to do this when keeping things short. You never know when you’ll miss an error in your work that word processing tools can’t fix for you. With these tips, you will be writing with new-found clarity and quality! Discuss this post at [The Forum of Jason Vincion]! Posted on December 18th, 2009. |
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