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It's a half truth that editing makes your writing more concise. First drafts have sloppy sentences that need to be trimmed or removed entirely. But proper editi
by hyperpape 4y ago
It's a half truth that editing makes your writing more concise. First drafts have sloppy sentences that need to be trimmed or removed entirely. But proper editing also reveals where you've assumed too much or your argument is weak, and fixing those problems requires more words, not fewer. When I see a writer whose prose is too fluid, my instinct is to ask what's left out.
- ghaff 4y agoYeah. For something that has to be just right in a limited number of words (ad copy, the introduction to a product or the company on your website, etc. you'll write a whole lot and throw out a lot. (And fiction is presumably a whole different ball game.) But your typical article or blog post? Much less technical docs? As you say, you'll clean up a lot of sloppy sentences (at least I do), maybe decide something is too much of a diversion, maybe decide your long winded lead-in really needs to get to the point, and probably add text to clarify some things or bulletproof them. (When I wrote research notes I loved footnotes for this purpose.) By and large, I'm not doing a big word dump and then cutting half of it.