As writers, we all secretly love crafting long, winding sentences and epic descriptions for our readers. But do you ever reread your writing and struggle to understand your initial meaning? Or do you ever find yourself drowning in your words as you attempt to get through a sentence in one breath? If so, you might be suffering from wordiness.
The consistent use of this type of writing can be detrimental to your work and can irritate your audience. We all want the world to know that we know a lot of words and how to use them; however, the key to great writing is subtlety and selectiveness with those words. As Strunk and White said in Elements of Style: “Vigorous writing is concise.” And concise writing is a product of a mature writer and self-editor.
As soon as you finish your latest piece of writing, take a step back, let it breathe and then go in for a proofread with these things in mind:
1. Get rid of passive voice.
Instead of saying, “The dinner was eaten by Edna,” use an active verb and say, “Edna ate dinner.” Use strong verbs (not weak such as “was” and “is”), and always, always, always try to have the subject of the sentence doing the action.
2. Delete fillers.
Bloated language occurs when writers use unnecessary fillers—generic words that don’t mean anything, are not specific or don’t add to the overall meaning.
Wordy: “Due to the fact that the family moved, Anna dealt with culture shock as a result.”
Concise: “Because the family moved, Anna dealt with culture shock.”
3. Avoid Redundancy.
Now you’re looking for the “fluffy” stuff. These are words you could have said once, but stated again anyway. There is, however, a difference in emphasis and redundancy.
Wordy: “We came to the mutual agreement that we could no longer have an amicable and cordial relationship.
Concise: "We agreed that we could no longer have an amicable relationship."
4. Remove extra qualifiers.
Many. Really. Definitively. Actually. Extremely. Very.
These words can be removed from almost every sentence they are used. While adverbs and adjectives can be great for descriptions, these types of qualifiers are vague and don’t enhance the meaning. They can often be replaced by a single, more poignant noun.
Wordy: “Jeff is extremely sad.”
Concise: “Jeff is devastated.”
Writing and more importantly, editing like a concise writer will give your writing a variety of sentences and vocabulary that wasn’t there before. Ernest Hemingway was famous for his to-the-point style that he picked up working as a journalist. Hemingway believed that cutting unnecessary words allowed the reader’s imagination to provide the rest and be fully immersed in the story. You aren’t writing for word count, but for content. So, write vigorously, edit concisely and choose those words wisely.
