My husband once said if I wrote a murder mystery it would be: They discovered the body in the library. The butler did it. The end.

Well, I’m not that bad, but I learned the value of succinct writing when I wrote articles with a 750-to-1000-word count for The Good News Newspaper. It became a matter of pride never to exceed the limit by even one word. I would scour my manuscript for anything that was unnecessary to the facts or could not fully engage the reader.

Dialogue and Pet Peeves

Writing dialogue can be tricky. I think the only place for word-for-word dialogue is when a court stenographer is recording testimony. Actual dialogue is full of “ah’s”, “ums”, “like,” and if a writer wrote dialogue the way people really speak, the book would be too long. But you wouldn’t have noticed that, since you would have closed it long ago.

I have two pet peeves. How often do we hear someone say, “At this point in time?” Five words to say what one word could — “now.”

Which reads better? “At this point in time, the combatants agreed to sue for peace, or “Now the combatants agreed to sue for peace.” Which has the greater punch? Did I lose anything by choosing “now” instead of those five words?

People say, “I thought to myself…”? It’s almost a universal expression. But I ask you, to whom else could you possibly think?  How about simply, “I thought?”

Word Slashing

I was listening to a workshop from Jerry Jenkins on his Jerry’s Guild members’ website. The man could take 300 words and reduce them to 150 and you’d never miss a thing. He said, “Two plus four is one” (or something like that.) He means that the more words one adds to convey an emotion, say, the less powerful the result. One pithy verb is worth more that four adjectives or adverbs. Less is more.

Learn by Absorption

I believe the genres writers read influence them. There are more descriptions and lengthier paragraphs in literary novels, and especially the classics, than in current novels. Think Dickens and Charlotte Bronte, even Hemingway.

Writers are readers, and I believe I’ve absorbed some of my writing style from reading my favorite authors. It seems obvious that writers should read within their genre, but there’s much to be said for reading other types of writing too. A good place to start as a reader would be to join a reading group where each member has the opportunity to select the book to be read and discussed. That forces you to read something you’d never choose for yourself, and perhaps be pleasantly surprised. As a writer, the two writers’ groups I belong to offer a smorgasbord of genres, such as sci-fi, fantasy, memoir, poetry, essays, mysteries and thrillers.

I say, read it all. The classics, current writers, both fiction and non-fiction. Nothing is better than a library chock-full of variety! Words, words, and more words. Gotta love words.