The case for fewer words
On cutting, choosing, and the quiet confidence of a short sentence.
This is placeholder writing created for the preview so the reading layout can be judged. It was not written by Your Name and has not been published anywhere.
Most writing is too long, and almost nobody minds. We have learned to skim. We read the first line, glance at the headings, and decide whether the rest deserves us. The writer who wants to be read has to win that decision again and again, paragraph by paragraph.
Cutting is how that decision is won. Not cutting for its own sake, as though brevity were a virtue in itself, but cutting as a form of respect: for the reader’s time, and for the one idea that matters most.
Every sentence has a job
A useful test is to ask what each sentence is doing. Is it introducing, explaining, proving, or moving the reader on? If the answer is “sounding thorough”, it can usually go. The sentences left behind become stronger, because they no longer have to share the page with their weaker cousins.
Every sentence should earn its place on the page.
This is harder than it sounds. The sentences we cut are often the ones we enjoyed writing. They were clever, or they took a long time, or they made us feel safe. Letting them go is a small act of courage.
Short is not the same as simple
Fewer words do not mean thinner ideas. A short sentence can carry a great deal, provided the thinking behind it is finished. The confusion usually arrives earlier, when we start writing before we know what we mean.
So the work begins before the first draft: decide what you want the reader to understand, believe, or do. Then write towards it, and stop when you arrive.