Cut the crap.

concision and creativity

“be direct”

“get to the point”

“cut words”

“be concise”

This is the advice du jour on X-Twitter, and online in general.

And it’s mostly right, mostly.

But here on the Write Way Newsletter we deal in reality instead of soundbites.

So let’s dive in a bit and move past the well-intentioned and understandable (but incomplete) advice.

Because sometimes the long way is the right way.

“Shortcuts make long delays,” as people like to quote, forgetting that Pippin was immediately corrected by the fact that inns make longer ones…

…but I digress.

Let’s start with why the advice is good and the gurus are right.

People are distracted.

I read a statistic recently that people in a museum spend 27 seconds looking at each piece of art on average.

Let that sink in…

People go to a museum. They go specifically to see art. Leave the house, travel, maybe even pay money, and then they spent 27 seconds looking.

Now…

…how long do you think they’ll give your social media post? Your email? Your book?

That’s what we’re up against.

Distraction.

In a world of constant noise, people have to spend time wisely. They need to be discerning. Well, they should be discerning.

So be direct. It helps.

Don’t waste your reader’s valuable time and attention. Make your point quickly and clearly. If you can fulfil your purpose in 10 words instead of 100 words, you should.

But...

Don’t forget that the purpose of writing is not to convey information.

The purpose of writing is to create emotion.

And that’s where the gurudorks go wrong.

That may be because they have the emotional depth of a saucer, or because their only emotion is impotent rage, but regardless…

…CAW-CAWs forget this facet of writing.

They forget about emotion, they forget about beauty.

But why does beauty matter?

Because beautiful writing is persuasive and powerful writing. It’s also worth it in its own right, but that’s another newsletter for another time. Even for the coldest-hearted of pragmatists though, there’s no escaping that people are drawn to beauty. If you write well, with a free and flowing style that rolls off the page and draws the reader into a whole new world of imagery and sensation...

...Then nobody will mind that your sentences are longer. Your paragraphs longer. Your emails longer.

Sometimes the longer way is the quicker and better way.

Pippin was right after all!

Take this email as a small and stumbling example.

I can sum it up in one sentence:

Be as concise as you can without sacrificing emotional impact.

But if that’s all I said you wouldn’t really feel it - would you? Perhaps you still didn’t, it’s only a newsletter after all and I’m typing this out rapidly in my only thirty minute spare slot between childcare duties and maintaining momentum on my five-figure editing contract job.

It’s not perfect, but every word is here for a reason. Nearly none could be cut without sacrificing strength of impact.

Here’s a more polished example from Dickens:

It was a maxim with Mr. Brass that the habit of paying compliments kept a man’s tongue oiled without any expense; and that, as that useful member ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges in the case of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be always glib and easy, he lost few opportunities of improving himself by the utterance of handsome speeches and eulogistic expressions.

Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop

Stop and reread that one a couple of times.

Now let me translate it into something that a guru Content Creatooooor might write:

Lawyers only say nice things because it is free.

Which works better?

Well, it depends on what you’re trying to do. If I was copywriting or putting a post on X-Twitter out, maybe I’d use the guru version.

But for a novel, or a letter, or an essay where I want to put the knife in so gently that you don’t even realise I’m being insulting until a few minutes later…

…I’m going for Dickens.

The CAW-CAWs aren’t wrong, if you’re only thinking about X-Twitter posts. After all, that’s all they write. Or (to an extent) copywriting.

But there’s more to life than X-Twitter, you need to have all the tools at your disposal.

What does the Write Way subscriber do then? How do we balance the needs of directness in an age of distraction with the power of a more circuitous approach?

Well, I’ll keep this part brief because it’s simple.

Realise that concision and verbosity (using lots of words) are both tools. And two different tools are for two different tasks. Often a longer piece can be more effective. Like Lewis said of stories, it can sneak past the “watchful dragons of the heart” and get in where a direct approach would fail.

If you want someone to change, gently showing the change and then drawing them into a story and carrying them along… Well, that’s more effective than shouting a command.

Be direct, sure. But don’t be blunt.

Hook people fast, directness in the first lines is the only way to cut through distraction, and learn to write well enough that after they’re hooked they’ll keep on reading.

Oh, and don’t forget what you’re writing. Social media posts, novels, essays, books, emails - they’re all different and they need different approaches.

When it comes to editing, it means instead of asking “Can I cut this word?” as you work through your piece, you ask this:

“Can I cut this word without sacrificing emotional impact?”

Instead of asking “Is there a shorter way to say this?”, you ask:

“Is there a better way to say this?”

Instead of “Is there a way to be more concise?”, you ask:

“Is there a way to be more effective?”

Because what matters is not taking less of your reader’s time, but winning more of your reader’s heart. If they enjoy reading your work, they won’t mind how long it is.

It’s why my editing course focuses not on making shorter sentences, but on the editing questions that actually make a difference to the effectiveness of your prose. It’s not about following rules, it’s about connecting with real people on the other end of your prose.

Go grab a copy here.

And until next week, may your pipe be pleasant and your writing moving and emotional,

Yours,

James Carran, Craftsman Writer