Pepper or flyshit?
Why, and how, to write concisely.
BE CONCISE—one of the Ross Rules—is not exactly a new concept. “Brevity is the soul of wit,” Shakespeare reminds us in Hamlet, written more than four centuries ago. Thomas Jefferson, who lived into the 19th century, wrote: “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” Beatrix Potter put it this way: “The shorter and the plainer, the better.” One more dictum: “Examine every word you put on paper,” advised William Zinsser. “You’ll find a surprising number that don’t serve any purpose.”
Why is concision so important? You want what you write to be read and understood, correct? Well, the shorter the message, the more likely it will be read and understood.
I’ve done work for a prominent businessman who actually said to me, “I don’t read anything longer than a few sentences.” Attention spans are shrinking, reading habits are changing. If there’s a phrase, or sentence, or paragraph in your writing that doesn’t need to be there, cut it. I repeat: the shorter the message, the more likely it will be read and understood. Part of an editor’s contribution is to help the writer achieve concision of expression in service to the reader.
You might think of it this way. The sap tapped from a sugar maple tree is thin and watery. The more you boil it down, the richer and more potent it becomes.
Or think of it like this. Hamburger Helper may “extend” a serving of ground beef, but it doesn’t add any meat.
Or consider this. Pepper and flyshit look the same on a white tablecloth, just as all words look more or less the same on the page (black letters on white background, each word made from the same 26 letters, each found in the same dictionary). You don’t want to adulterate your writing with superfluous language any more than you want to add flyshit to the peppercorns in your pepper mill. Writing and editing involves learning to spot the flyshit.
IT’S A SKILL YOU PERFECT through practice. I’d probably need help distinguishing between a diamond and cubic zirconium; a gemologist can do it at a glance. The gemologist, in turn, might wonder what rankles me about “general public” or “mutual cooperation.”
Answer: I notice that the adjective in each phrase is redundant. Flyshit alert! Two words, when one will do. (So too: armed gunman, future plans, exact replica, closed fist, universal panacea, innocent bystander, occasional irregularity, past history, free gift).
Once you start looking, you notice redundancy and unnecessary language everywhere. Another example of flyshit: the throat-clearing, time-buying spacers we use in oral communication—“As you may be aware,” “I’d like to take this opportunity,” “I don’t know about you”—find their way onto the page, where they’re usually not needed.
ANOTHER FLYSHIT ALERT. Grammatical constructions that require two verbs—"Makar elected to ice the puck,” “John decided to lease the Audi,” “Rebecca was able to finish the exam in record time”—can often be collapsed (“Rebecca finished the exam in record time).” Sometimes the initial verb is fitting (“Zang finally managed to reach the summit after 14 harrowing hours in the Death Zone”), but more often it adds nothing except word count.
Verbs also get turned into nouns for no good reason (“George resigned” becomes “George tendered his resignation,” “Jurors may infer” becomes “Jurors may make the inference”). Surely people can simply realize things, rather than “come to the realization,” and diners can decide on the salmon without “making the decision” to have it for dinner. The nominalization of a verb turns one word into a phrase, making the sentence longer but no richer.
The paragraph below may seem fine to another reader, but it gives me the willies.
People got up on their feet, cheering and clapping their hands in a standing ovation. Onstage, the candidate shrugged his shoulders, looking bewildered. Nancy chose not to stand, but rather to remain seated, the only member of the audience to do so. (42 words)
Here’s why the paragraph irks me. Clapping involves bringing your hands together repeatedly. So why not just “clapping,” rather than “clapping their hands”? Similarly, if you say people are on their feet, clapping and cheering, you’ve described a standing ovation—no need to add those words. And since shrugging involves the shoulders (you can’t shrug your hips), “shrugged his shoulders” is redundant.
Finally, if someone remains seated while everyone else is on their feet, that person has plainly chosen to stay seated. Nobody forced Nancy not to stand up, and so there’s no need for that extra verb. Editing the paragraph, then, keeping a keen eye out for flyshit, you might end up with this (I’ve bolded the words I’ve changed or cut):
People got up on their feet, cheering and clapping their hands in a standing ovation. Onstage, the candidate shrugged his shoulders, looking bewildered. Nancy chose not to stand, but rather to remain seated, the only member of the audience to do so. (42 words)
People got to their feet, clapping and cheering. Onstage, the candidate shrugged, bewildered. Nancy remained seated, the only audience member to do so. (23 words)
BE CONCISE is not a blanket commandment to search and destroy every word that could possibly be cut. In some cases, there’s a good reason to keep the wordier option—pacing, for example, or tone, or emphasis—but it ought to be a conscious choice, not inadvertent flyshit. BE CONCISE is simply a reminder always to look for ways to make your writing more muscular, vivid, and memorable.