WRITING LESSON: Making Your Writing More Economical by Not Using (or Spending) Words Carelessly

Making your writing economical means cutting unnecessary words, all those that don't contribute to your message. Inexperienced writers often use far more words than necessary. They don't attach enough value to individual words, so they just sort of scatter them around in their paragraphs and essays. As a result, the writing appears cluttered. The central ideas are hard to focus on because unimportant words get in the way.

Let's look at an example:

All my intentions were to experience prison from the inside looking out and not from the outside looking in. I knew if I played my cards right and if the opportunity presented itself I wouldn't hesitate or be afraid to experience a short period behind bars, walls, fences, or prison for that matter in order to get an insider's view.

The idea here is interesting, but obscured by clutter. We could easily cut some excess. Maybe a little meaning is lost, but nothing crucial, and notice how much more smoothly it reads:

My intentions were to experience prison from the inside, and I wasn't afraid to spend a short period behinds bars to get an insider's view.


And we could tighten it even more:

I wasn't afraid to spend a short time behind bars just for the experience.

The sixty-one words in the first version have been cut to fourteen! Of course, not all writing can be tightened this much, but most early drafts profit by being trimmed to the essentials. Not only does the meaning become clearer, the writing gets easier to read, more vivid and lively. As a hidden bonus, many grammatical problems eliminate themselves during tightening, since they're as often caused by clutter as by broken rules.

One way to tighten is to join several short sentences into a longer one:

I have always had this one dream. My dream has been to be a famous writer. Everyone would read my books. I would become very wealthy.


This could all be made into one sentence:

I have always dreamed of being a wealthy, famous writer, read by everyone.

Besides cutting five words, we've eliminated the choppy rhythm, creating a more fluid and mature sentence.

Tightening isn't hard, although there is a kind of knack to it, and a person gets better with practice.

The following suggestions may help:

* Look for words that don't do their share of work:
Change: There's a light on the scoreboard that flashes on and off.
to: The scoreboard light flashes on and off.

* Use strong verbs:
Change: In a cautious manner the car went around the corner.
to: The car negotiated the corner.

* Don't pile up modifiers in front of nouns:
Change: He was a weak, timid, scared sort of individual.
to: He was a mouse.

* Make the agent (the person doing the action) the subject of the sentence:
Change: The report was read to us by Mr. Coleman. (Mr. Coleman does the action.)
to: Mr. Coleman read us the report.
Note: This is called changing from passive to active voice.

* Keep it clear and simple:
Change: Bluegrass music might be said to have certain qualities which render it in a disagreeable light to a clear majority of my peers.
to: Most of my friends don't like bluegrass music.

* Try combining several short sentences into a longer one:
Change: I have this beautiful watch. It is silver. It was given to me by my father. He gave it to me last year.
to: Last year my father gave me this beautiful silver watch.

* Get rid of weak words.
The following list contains weak words that can often be changed to stronger ones. Search for these words in your writing and try to use a different word, or perhaps rewrite the sentence in a different way.

DEFINITION: WEAK WORDS
The following words are very weak, and should rarely be used:
somewhat, perhaps, nearly, very, only, just, a bit, a little, suddenly, almost, should, would, could, feel/felt, begin/began, rather, few, seem, appear, quite, really, always, awesome, very, cool, great, good, sweet, totally, absolutely, well, basically, fairly, kind of, pretty, sort of, truly, utterly

Of course, there are certain situations in writing where these words would be appropriate and necessary. But usually they are weak and should be replaced.

The aim in every case is to make your writing smoother and vivid, more expressive of your meaning. In fact, that's the aim of revision in general: to make every word work.


Practice:

Tighten the following sentences. As you do, remember that any of several possibilities may work well. Sometimes you will find that many words can be cut out, other times only a few.

a. Several unnecessary words can be cut here. They can be cut by combining the two sentences together into one single sentence.



b. My last English teacher was much younger than my present English teacher. His hair had turned mostly gray, but it still had some black flecks left in it.



c. We are going to North Carolina and West Virginia. Both of these are very beautiful states located in the southeastern portion of the country.



d. If a person looking for a job has a good physical appearance, a job in general will be easier to find. This is because an employer wants a person who is neat looking in appearance.



e. Well, it seems I kind of got off the track of what I was intending to write about, but I don't really much care.



f. Regular gasoline is what is needed to make my car run. This fact makes my car an economical car, so practical and inexpensive at this time of rising prices and inflation.



g. It even seems as though these two specimens could possibly be of the same species because of the color coordination and also because of how the shapes are similar.



h. Because of the great amount of people in such a small area, there is of course a high amount of crime in this same area.



i. In the fall of the year is the time when Jim likes to go hunting for elk. It is during that season that Jim heads off into the woods armed with his gun and his camera. In many cases Jim's camera gets more use than his gun does.