Less is More

Every word must earn its space on the page. Anything can be cut. Remember, we’re allowing the cream to rise to the top.

Now’s the time to dump any tasteless skim milk… these are the boring, the repetitive, and the wordy parts.

Here’s 5 specific ways to cut out unnecessary words like a pro:

1. Circle or highlight all adverbs. Adverbs include many words that end with “-ly”. Some of the common ones include:

• absolutely

• completely

• extremely

• really

• totally

• very

Delete them all, or replace them with single words that pack more punch. “I was elated” is much stronger than “I was really happy.”

2. Look for a single word or short phrase followed by a comma. Yes, I know your English teachers have drilled into you to use these transition phrases. Now you get to

savor the joy of breaking their rule. Go find:

• because of this,

• in fact/as a matter of fact,

• first,

• last,

• hopefully,

• to be frank/quite frankly,

• in conclusion,

• in addition,

• furthermore,

• of course,

Highlight the words or phrases, then read the sentences without these words. Any that fail to enhance your story, eliminate. Without these words your voice has more authority.

3. Review all helping verbs. As a reminder, these are:

• To Be: am, is, are, was, were, being, been, will be

• To Have: has, have, had, having, will have

• To Do: does, do, did, will do

Many of these can be removed or rephrased to help your writing be more active and interesting.

For example, replace “I am going to be visiting…” with “I will visit.”

Or change, “The tests were graded by my teacher” to “My teacher graded the tests.”

4. Delete “to be” verbs. Rather than writing “I am a voracious reader," try “I read voraciously.” (See the list above for help spotting them.)

5. Turn some nouns into verbs: “I realized..” is better than “I came to the realization…”

All these edits take time (though you can do global document searches if you’ve typed your essay). And they’re totally worth it!

I find it a really fun challenge to take an essay and watch the “weight” fall off… 50% can be gone quite quickly. And what’s left is the strongest, the clearest, the most interesting parts.

Have fun with this process. You’re Michelangelo with his monolithic block of Carrera marble. It’s time to let your “David” emerge as the unnecessary parts fall away.