Cut the Clutter and Streamline Your Writing, Part III

by Jodie Renner, editor, author, speaker    
 

In Part I of this series, I gave some tips and examples for streamlining your writing to make your message more accessible and compelling. In Part II, we saw some specific examples of words and phrases to cut or reduce, to write more powerfully.

Here, we continue to explore ways to cut out the deadwood by avoiding repetitions and convoluted phrasing and going for clear, concise writing. Remember, it’s about direct communication and carrying your reader along with the story. Don’t muddle your message with a lot of extra words that just clutter up the sentence and hamper the free flow of ideas.

Avoid repetitions and redundancies in all their forms: two words meaning the same thing; saying something in five or six words when you can express it with one or two; and phrases or sentences that keep saying the same thing over and over in different ways.

 

Redundant Phrases. Avoid this kind of “repetitive redundancy”:

Repetitive phrase:                 Concise equivalent:

basic fundamentals                 fundamentals

honest truth                             truth

future plans                             plans

regular routine                         routine

past history                              history

final outcome                          outcome

extremely unique                     unique

repeat again                             repeat

totally unanimous                    unanimous

sudden impulse                       impulse

unexpected surprise                surprise

overused cliché                       cliché

What’s the problem? It’s obvious — the only kind of truth is honest truth, an impulse is sudden, repeat means to do something again, a surprise is by nature unexpected, and so on.

Cut out the deadwood, words that restate what is obvious by the rest of the sentence, words that just repeat what you’ve already said, words that are just adding clutter to your sentence. For example, the phrases in brackets are redundant here:

We passed an abandoned house [that nobody lived in] on a deserted street [with no one around].

At this [point in] time, [the truth is that] complaints are increasing [in number], but I don’t see that as a problem [to be solved].

Cluttering your sentences with too many unnecessary words can subliminally irritate your reader. Here a few examples of this “little word pile-up” tendency:

Instead of:                              Use:

in spite of the fact that            although

as a result of                            because

came in contact with                met

at this point in time                  now

during the time that                 while

he is a man who                        he

make use of                              use

with reference to                      about

Here are some examples, altered and disguised from my fiction editing, of trimming excess words:

Before: He was shooting off his mouth in the bar last night telling everybody that he was going to find the bastard that ratted on him.

After: He was shooting off his mouth in the bar last night about finding the bastard that ratted on him.

Before: Jennifer ran along the tunnel and up the stone steps to the walkway. She hesitated for only a moment at the top in order to jam the hand gun she was holding into her waistband and give her time to figure out where to run.

After: Jennifer ran along the tunnel and up the stone steps to the walkway. At the top, she stopped to jam the gun into her waistband and figure out where to run.

Finally, avoid convoluted phrasing and leave out unnecessary little details that just serve to distract the reader, who wonders for an instant why they’re there and if they’re significant:

Before: He had arrived at the coffee machine and was punching the buttons on its front with an outstretched index finger when a voice from behind him broke him away from his thoughts.

After: He was punching the buttons on the coffee machine when a voice behind him broke into his thoughts.

In the first example, we have way too much minute detail. What else would he be punching the buttons with besides his finger? And we don’t need to know which finger or that it’s outstretched. Everybody does it pretty much the same. Avoid having minute details like this that just clutter up your prose.

Before: The officer was indicating with a hand gesture a door that was behind and off to the right of McKay. Angular snarl stuck to his face, he swung his head around to look in the direction the other officer was pointing.

After: The officer gestured to a door behind McKay. Snarling, he turned to look behind him.

Before: “Bastards. Why am I always the last to know?” Pivoting, the detective walked in the direction of the station's front desk with a purposeful, nearly aggressive, gait.  He shoved himself bodily through the swinging door and locked eye contact with the uniformed officer on reception duty.

 
After: “Bastards. Why am I always the last to know?” Pivoting, the detective marched toward the front desk. He slammed through the swinging door and glared at the officer on reception duty.

Copyright © Jodie Renner, May 2012

Also, see my article entitled “Clear, Concise, Powerful Nonfiction Writing.”

Next: Resist the Urge to Explain (RUE), and One Plus One Equals One-Half

 Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity, incl. Childhood Regained – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, her blog, http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/, and on Facebook and Twitter.

Cut the Clutter and Streamline Your Writing, Part II

by Jodie Renner, editor, author, speaker 

 In Part I, I talked about revising your fiction to take out any words that aren’t needed, to strengthen what’s left and make your message more powerful and accessible.

Here are more tips for streamlining your writing.

1. Cut out qualifiers.

Start by cutting out qualifiers like very, quite, rather, somewhat, kind of, and sort of, which just dilute your message, weaken the imagery, and dissipate the tension.

Before: “I’m honestly quite surprised and a bit disappointed at her reaction, as I kind of thought we’d resolved that issue.”

After: “I’m surprised and disappointed at her reaction, as I thought we’d resolved that issue.”

Before: “She was rather worried about the situation, and it was making her very tense.”

After: “She was worried about the situation and it was making her tense.”


2. Take out the word “that” wherever it’s not needed. 
Read the sentence out loud, and if it still makes sense without the “that,” remove it. Smooths out the sentence – less clunky. 

Examples: He told me that he’d be here at five. => He told me he’d be here at five.

The dog that you gave me is growing fast. => The dog you gave me is growing fast.

Before: She said that you thought that it was too expensive and that you wanted to shop around. 

After: She said you thought it was too expensive and you wanted to shop around.

However, be sure to keep the “that” if it’s necessary for meaning, or if omitting it will cause even momentary confusion and force the reader to read the sentence again:

“He claimed the property was worth $2 million” could at first glance be read, “He claimed the property” (as in “for himself”), so better to say, “He claimed that the property was…”

Similarly, “They believed the prisoners should be punished” is clearer with “that”:
“They believed that the prisoners should be punished.” Otherwise a fast reader might first think of the meaning “They believed the prisoners.”


3. Cut way back on adjectives and adverbs.

Many or even most adjectives and adverbs are dispensable. Instead, use stronger nouns and verbs. Sol Stein recommends a bold approach: “The quickest way of increasing the pace of a manuscript and strengthening it at the same time is to remove all adjectives and adverbs, and then readmit the necessary few after careful testing.”

See how many –ly adverbs you can cut. Use a stronger verb instead. Rather than “He walked purposefully across the room,” say “He strode across the room.” Or how about, “She screamed loudly.” A scream is loud, so no need to add “loudly.” Same with “He hurriedly scribbled a note.” Scribbling implies writing quickly, so no need for the adverb. Same with “She whispered softly.” Or “He ran quickly.” Take out “quickly,” or even better, use a more descriptive verb: “He raced” or “He dashed.”

Then see how many adjectives you can cut. If you describe someone or something with three or four adjectives, can you cut out one or two, and just leave the strongest, most apt one or two? That way, what’s left will stand out more and have more power. 

Before: It was a beautiful, huge, historic Victorian mansion.
After: It was a beautiful Victorian mansion.

But don’t go to extremes and delete all adjectives and adverbs. Some adjectives and adverbs enhance rather than detracting. Here are some tips for deciding which adverbs and adjectives to cut, and which to keep (adapted from advice by Sol Stein).

Keep any adjectives and adverbs that:
· Supply necessary information for reader understanding.

· Help the reader visualize the precise image or feeling you want to project.

· Stimulate the reader’s curiosity and keep the story moving along, like “She had a haunted look.”


4. Take out dialogue tags (he said, she said, etc.) where it’s obvious who’s speaking. But don’t take them all out – that can be annoying if the reader is forced to check back four or five lines to see who’s talking now.


5. Take out all those little unnecessary words and prepositional phrases that clutter up your sentences.

Some before => after examples:

in the vicinity of => near

as a consequence of => because

for the simple reason that => because

owing to the fact that => because

a large percentage of => many

has the appearance of => looks like

engaged the services of => hired

with the exception of => except for

take into consideration => write “consider

Thomas spoke in a muffled fashion. => Thomas mumbled.


Some more examples of cutting unnecessary little words and streamlining your prose, from Jodie’s editing (modified and disguised):

Before: A moment passed before he remembered…

After: Then he remembered…


Before: He moved his mouse pointer over to the other email that he had received.

After: He clicked on the other email he had received.


Before: Jake pulled the jeep off by the side of the road near the path that led to the old cabin.

After: Jake pulled off near the path that led to the old cabin.


Before: Johnson paused a moment before replying as he slowed the car in preparation for a right-hand turn onto a smaller road, resuming the conversation as the car again picked up speed.

After: Johnson paused as he slowed the car to turn right onto a smaller road, then continued as the car picked up speed.


In Part III, we’ll talk about reducing repetitions in all their forms, as well as "RUE" (Resist the Urge to Explain), “info dumps,” and other strategies for cutting clutter and redundancies to empower your writing.

Resources:
Robert W. Harris, When Good People Write Bad Sentences
Jessica Page Morrell, Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us
Sol Stein, On Writing
 

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity, incl. Childhood Regained – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, her blog, http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/, and on Facebook and Twitter.