Four Easy Ways to Write Concisely

Concision can play a huge role in the impact of your message. No one wants to wade through unnecessary words, and worse, wordiness can weaken your writing.

Here are some easy ways to tighten your writing as you self-edit. You are self-editing before you call your copy editor, right? Of course you are.

Elminate the make:  make a promise, make a deal, make a bet, make dinner (okay, you could make dinner.) But you get the idea: doesn’t it sound better to promise, negotiate, wager? Also, to cook dinner sounds more precise, doesn’t it? Or better yet, to boil pasta, simmer tomato sauce…

No basis for basis: on a monthly basis, on a weekly basis, on a temporary basis. Try monthly, weekly, temporarily. Even “each month” is better, though that’s still one word too many.

Step off the preposition train: Track down prepositions like of and to. They can often be eliminated. Especially tedious are preposition trains, where one preposition stacks upon another upon another.

How many books of Stephen King’s do you have in the library that is in Springdale?

How many Stephen King books do you have at Springdale Library?

Eliminate redundancies. Your editor will love you for this one.

Free gift

Each and every one

Share in common

Because the reason is (the reason is because)

Ask a question

Advance planning, advance reservations

Prior plans

The month of July

Repeat over and over

Positive (or beneficial or desirable) benefits

Sudden explosion, sudden impact, sudden anything, really. “Sudden” is a cheesy way to grab attention.

Close proximity

Your high school English teacher isn’t being paid to read your writing, and you don’t get extra credit for extra words. So make it easy for your reader, and they may just love you back.

JoAnne Dyer is an editor, writer, proofreader, and event planner. She founded Seven Madronas Communications in 2015. Seven Madronas specializes in helping change-makers and people doing good in the world. She’s edited dozens of nonfiction books and writes regularly for Nest Publications and The Connector magazine. When she’s not agonizing over subject/verb agreements, she’s hiking in the red canyons of Utah or cooking vegetarian dinners in her native Seattle, Washington.

JoAnne Dyer
Seven Madronas Communications
www.7madronas.com
206-465-9146
Twitter @7madronas
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