I have always struggled to say what I mean using an appropriate number of words. Oh, and I still do. Daily.
By nature, I am verbose. Which means I have always admired, unfortunately often from afar, those whose measured responses seem to synthesize what I assume must be a vast maelstrom of noise into clear thoughts, articulated succinctly.
I hold as artists those who can take that tornado and figure out what to say about it in a way that conveys its emotionality in just a few brief words.
My issue, I think, is this: at my core I believe that if I just had one more sentence, one more word edgewise, I could convince the world of my position.
This is a base feeling for me. I sometimes wonder how much of it comes from being slow to communicate verbally early in life. I was late to talk and slow, compared to my peers, to read. Part of me still feels the relief of now having this incredible tool, verbal and written language, so I remain bursting, positively bubbling over, to use it to its fullest.
But that is no excuse. The world, and its finite supply of attention, does not make a carve-out for me any more than it does for the next long-winded person.
You have to earn Infinite Jest and struggle to be allowed 6 volumes describing it (both, ironically for this piece, still on my reading list).
For the rest of us, if thoughts are to be shared, if points are to be communicated, then they need to be delivered in the best way possible. And ideally, they shouldn’t take too long to arrive.
“If the reader doesn’t read it, it doesn’t matter what it says" cuts the point for me and was one of the things I pulled from Todd Rogers' book on the subject.
It captures the underlying tension between serving yourself and serving the audience. If you write, you want to be read. And as someone who reads, I deeply understand the inverse relationship. I hate when someone takes too long to get to the point, formats information poorly, presents ideas in a boring way, or insists on holding my hand when they don’t trust me to connect the dots or feel the implied emotions along the way.
So why, in turn, do I so often fail to apply the golden rule when I sit down to write?
And am I messing it up right now? Would this have been better, or funnier, if the entire post were just a single sentence that read: Write less, dummy?
Why is it so hard to look at your own words and say to yourself: Cut that! Cut that! Cut that!
I don’t definitively know why. But over the years I’ve arrived at my own practical, and unfortunately very high-school-English-teacher, conclusion. Writing is less about putting words on paper and more about removing them. At least for me, the real work of writing is cutting, shaping, condensing, and reworking a piece until it can breathe.
To do this, I try to remember two things.
First, the quote often attributed to Colin Chapman,, the designer of the Lotus Europa and much else at Lotus: “Simplify, then add lightness.” It applies just as well to writing.
Second, I try to imagine I’m writing for one specific person. They aren’t real, but they are busy. They possess kindness, but also a sharp, biting wit. They’re smarter, better traveled, and more emotionally attuned than I am. Writing for them helps me sharpen the sword of the piece so I don’t disappoint when I hand it over to this mythical Adonis or Aphrodite before they head into battle.
It's also, a technique used by the very best, and those who you might think don't require it.
And finally, it’s important to know when to end a piece. Not to continue on for no good reason. If this ending feels a little rough, well, I haven’t written the post on conclusions yet.
Stay tuned.
Joey's Editor: I’m genuinely curious whether people will think this post on verbosity is, in its own right, too verbose. What an irony that would be. But you open yourself up to that kind of criticism when you decide to write about it in the first place. Email Joey if you think this dragged on—and feel free to CC me.