100 Day Creative Challenge Day 93: Less is More
One of the best writing classes I’ve been to was a business writing course. This may seem a strange choice of class for a writer of fiction to attend, but I’ve always struggled to write less. A 500 word limit in a uni assignment just about killed me. One of the first challenges of the course was to write a letter to the editor of our city newspaper and have it published. It had to be pithy, brief, and clever.
A few years ago I re-entered study and had to write a 200-word analysis of a multi-intellegence approach to education. I just about choked. The topic description had about fifty words in it.
Last night I sat with a group of 15 people as we attempted to find a name and tag-line for a particular project we are looking at doing next year. Two or three words were required for the brand name and perhaps four or five for the tag-line. Kill me now!
I woke up this morning with two and three-word slogans running through my brain and I had to get up at 6am and get my laptop out. It was horrendous. How do you encapsulate a year-long project into a few words?
So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads. Dr. Seuss
Writing with impact is something we all aspire to and it takes discipline. We can ramble and create wordy lines filled with irrelevant, self-indulgent drivel or we can hone and cull and craft until we create something sleek and stylish and significant.
Words have power and we can use them with effect or become part of the empty noise around us. Sometimes less is more.
Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination. Louise Brooks
A little bread, olive oil, red wine and bread makes for a less is more meal.
