Four Simple Practices to Help You Write Tight
By Candyce Carden To keep an audience reading our words, we must write with clarity, crispness, and concision. Our goal is to write tight and make every word count. Tight writing moves our audience along in our story or article. Wordy writing with meandering sentences loses readers. They don’t have the time or patience to wander through miles of prose to find the point. These four simple practices will help you write tight by trimming away the fat. 1. Avoid Adverbs The smallest dab of adverbs is plenty, just like with perfume. Here’s a couple of successful writers on adverbs: “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Stephen King “Adverbs are the tool of the lazy writer.” Mark Twain Adverbs modify verbs. But they can also modify adjectives and other adverbs. They often end with ly , though not always. Adverbs are weak. Instead of adding depth, meaning, or action to a sentence, they slow it down. Tight writers find a strong verb to show the reader wh...
