1 + 1 = 1/2

Introducing . . . Editor Math.

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Child, to say the very thing you mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words.

- C.S. Lewis, Til We Have Faces

You’ve heard of “girl math.”

Now get ready for . . . “editor math.”

Photo via Pinterest

It’s a simple formula, really: 1 + 1 = 1/2.¹

If we’re being truly honest with ourselves, most of us writers struggle with being overly verbose and unintentionally redundant in our writing. We tend to say the same thing over and over, repeating ourselves unnecessarily. As well, we also have a bad habit of throwing in superfluous adjectives and adverbs, thinking that more modifiers will enhance our writing and imbue our sentences with greater meaning when, in reality, all those extra words just bog our readers down, making it harder for them to understand our intended meaning.

See what I mean??

I could have trimmed that paragraph and made my point in half as many words.

When it comes to clear, persuasive writing, less is more.

But I’m guessing some of you are thinking, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ve talked about word counts before. But I’m not running a blog. I’m writing a book! Can’t I make it as long as I want?”

Yes and no.

Whether you’re writing a 2,000-character Instagram post or a 100,000-word high fantasy novel, you need to make every word count. Excess verbiage weakens a novel or memoir just as much as an underdeveloped plot or unrealistic dialogue.

One quick way to eliminate excess verbiage is to evaluate your use of modifiers (a.k.a. adjectives and adverbs). You don’t need to avoid them entirely (case in point), but you also don’t want to use them to excess, thereby watering down your prose.

3 ½ Ways to Use Modifiers Effectively: