Writers--Tight is Right

 

When we look at a blank page, be it in a book to use for journaling or on our computer screen, we can write anything we want to. And any way. It's our choice. No holds barred. But wait...

We do have to stay within certain perimeters if we want to see our work published. Editors set word counts. They tell us to send a 'story' not an 'essay' or they tell us what we send must be fiction, or sometimes true. They also don't want writers rambling all over the page. Instead, we're urged to 'write tight.' So many guidelines that fence us in a bit.

To be published, we must follow those rules set by the people who have the final say as to whether your story will be seen by the public or not. 

Let's look at the art of writing tight. Our aim in anything we write is to grab the reader's attention and keep it. If we ramble like a herd of cows on the prairie searching for ever-sweeter grass, we're going to lose our reader in a hurry. 

Master the following and you'll never have a problem being told to write tighter:

1. Eliminate unnecessary words like just, really, quite, very. They do nothing but take up space. 
2. Use active verbs to replace the 'to be' passives like was, is, had been, are. To do this, you may have to flip the order of the sentence. Don't just try to insert the active verb where you had the passive one. It doesn't always work.
3. Practice writing flash fiction; enter flash fiction contests. You want to try the ones that ask for 100 to 300 words, or even less. There can be no extras in this kind of writing. 
4. Delete words wherever you can. If your max word count is 1200, and you have 1357 words, don't despair. You can cut those extra words and not lose anything in your story. I've done it many times, and you can, too. Look for ways to reword a sentence so that it uses fewer words but still gets the same idea across. Cut those unnecessary words. Do all the things mentioned in this list, and you'll be surprised at how many words you can cut. 
5. Get rid of dialog tags by using merely an action to show who spoke. Jane slammed the book on the table. "I will not read anything this woman writes again!" There is no need for the usual 'she said' It's perfectly clear who said it.
6. Use clear and to the point sentences. Don't embellish with lots of adjectives and adverbs.
7. Read a lot of poetry. Why? Poets are masterful in economizing on words. Note how they write and try it in your prose.

Can you write 'too tight?' Yes, and you want to be careful that you don't cut down and out so many things that you've lost your story and will surely lose your readers. 

Keep in mind that 'tight is right.'