A few weeks ago, in one of my blog posts, I admitted that I use too many words and I promised to strive, going forward, to make my blog entries shorter.
This has been a real challenge for me, as it goes against the grain of the way I’ve been writing all of my life. Sure, I over-explain things and I often use more words than may be necessary to make my point. But I’ve always felt that my style of writing, verbose though it may occasionally be, adds color and life to what I write, and demonstrates that I’m an intelligent and articulate writer with an excellent command of the language. And perhaps ― just perhaps ― a slightly exaggerated sense of self-appreciation.
Apparently, I was wrong. Not about my sense of self-appreciation, but about my writing style. I recently saw an article in The USA Today by Al Neuharth entitled “Why it takes longer to keep things short.” Neuharth wrote, “Short is not easy, in writing or speaking. It’s much more difficult.”
Neuharth writes a weekly column for the paper and this particular column was his 1,175th. He claims that each column is 300 words or less, and he properly notes that “long-winded stuff loses the attention of listeners and readers.” He also quoted FDR, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain, all of whom made comments about how difficult it is to be concise. Twain, for example, said, “If I had more time, I’d write shorter.”
I agree. It’s so much easier to write in a stream of consciousness manner than it is to be concise. I usually start out writing whatever pops into my head about a subject and then try to edit that free-flow of words into some sort of cohesive post. But that often is more a matter of moving things around than actually cutting things out.
Removing what some might consider to be unnecessary words from my writing is difficult for me because everything I write is, in my humble opinion, germane to the subject matter. Thus, nothing is unnecessary. For me, removing sentences is akin to asking a mother to choose which child she’s willing to edit out of her family.
I am over 350 words at this point in this post. As a result, I may already have lost some of my readers (assuming there are any). But the good news is that I’m not a paid columnist who has been commanded by his editor or publisher to keep it down to 300 words or less.
Still, in the interest of not taxing my loyal blog followers (assuming there are any) with having to spend more than a minute or two reading my posts, I will continue to strive to keep my posts shorter and more concise.
But 300 words or less? Forgedaboudit.
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