Mentor Monday: Murder Your Darlings

I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.

--Mark Twain

When I was first learning my craft, I wasn't fond of following assigned word counts. It was important to tell my story in my way. That included using as many words as I needed.

It wasn't long afterward that I learned that less is actually more – much more.

As Twain alluded to, it's very, very easy to write something long. To write tight you need to pare your words so each earns its place. This helps eliminate redundancy. Say it perfectly one time, you don't need to say it again.

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch suggested you 'murder your darlings'. I don't necessarily advocate that – you might wipe out something really good. But, sometimes there are small edits you can make that distill your writing into something tight and highly readable.

This is Quiller-Couch.

Some suggest cutting your manuscript by 10%. That means if you have a thousand words, cut 100 of them. Impossible? Perhaps, but try it anyway.

This cutting is the part I especially like – at this point, I know I'm almost done. It's a challenge to see if I can do away with the words not earning their place in my prose.

Case in point: this article started out at 540 words, but with some judicious editing, I've gotten it down to 275.

I'd make it even shorter, but don't have time.

For more suggestions on writing tight and other writing tips, type in Mentor Monday in the search box at the top of this blog.

Or go here.

Rules for Writers

Courtesy of those who know a thing or two on the subject . . .


Don't write about Man, write about a man

-- E.B. White


Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words as we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don't always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it vital and alive.

-- Theodor Seuss Geisel


Never use the passive when you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

-- George Orwell


Get black on white.

-- Guy de Maupassant


A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

-- Thomas Mann


The first discipline is the realization that there is a discipline – that all art begins and ends with discipline – that any art is first and foremost a craft.

-- Archibald MacLeish


The adjective is the enemy of the noun.

-- Voltaire


There is but one art . . . to omit. O' if I knew how to omit I would ask no other knowledge. A man who knew how to omit would make an Iliad of a daily paper.

-- Robert Louis Stevenson


If you keep working, inspiration comes.

-- Alexander Calder


The more particular, the more specific you are, the more universal you are.

-- Nancy Hale


Follow the accident, fear the fixed plan – that is the rule.

-- John Fowles


Don't say the old lady screamed – bring her on and let her scream.

-- Mark Twain