Hey friends,
I'm coming to you from Wellington this week! I've been down for the weekend to celebrate my mate's birthday. Happy Birthday Harry!
Before I get some sleep, I'd like to share with you a couple of quick things I've been thinking about recently...
The most direct way to improve our writing is to make our sentences shorter.
We think more words mean better, smarter writing. They don’t.
More words mean clutter. Our message can get lost.
The message should be easy to grasp at first glance. Test each sentence. Is every word doing its job?
Cut unneeded words and keep only what’s needed, ensuring the sentence is clear, direct, and sharp.
Weak, wasted, and redundant words.
Weak words lack meaning, wasted ones don't serve a purpose, and redundant ones say the same thing twice.
Calling Seamus a "kind, generous, thoughtful person" is weak when you can call him a "saint".
Saying “in the event of” is a waste of words when you could say "if", as is “for a period of a month” when you could say "for a month".
"9am in the morning" and "red in color” both have redundancies, because 9am is always in the morning and a thing can’t be red in size, shape, or age.
You can avoid these three deadly writing sins by compressing your sentences.
If you can reduce ten words to five without altering the meaning of your sentences, do it, says David Perell in his 50 Days of Writing email newsletter.
Be careful with 'very'.
It is our go-to amplifier, but it is often problematic.
It can strengthen positives like "thoughtful" and "funny" adequately. Besides being lazy phrasing, "very thoughtful" and "very funny" emphasise what we are trying to say about the thing.
Yet, when used to describe differences, 'very' can unintentionally change a sentence's meaning. “They’re very corporate” may sound negative compared with "They're corporate". "She's very eccentric" may sound objectifying compared with "She's eccentric".
'Very' may quietly change the sentiment and not deliver the intended message.
If you’re labelling someone with a description, ask yourself why. If removing an amplifier like ‘very’ makes your point clearer, leave it out.
And while you're there, instead of adding an amplifier to strengthen positives, try using more exciting vocabulary. "Perceptive" and "hilarious" tell a much better story than "very thoughtful" and "very funny".
Seth Godin shared the crux of this tip in his blog. A timely reminder for me.
Have a brilliant week.
Ben x
✍🏻 Quote of the week
"A critical quality to develop in life is the willingness to try. You simply must find enough confidence to give it a go. The human mind is fabulous at learning. You will get better at whatever you practice. But before you can develop the skill to succeed, you must find the courage to attempt."
By James Clear in his newsletter.
