4 steps to punchier, better writing...

I recently ran into a writing exercise on a marketing training course at work: we had to write a story in as few words as possible. This was to help us develop the skills to craft pithy, punchy brand positioning statements. The writing muscles this exercise made me flex reminded me of when the editing and rewriting process goes well, and I thought it would be worth sharing here.

My partner in the exercise and I were given a setting, the jungle, and told to get going. We kicked around a few ideas and settled on this as our first effort...

The lion was really angry because nobody had told him that the party was supposed to be fancy dress.

OK, not exactly Kipling, but it made us smile. I think we liked it because it hinted at a bigger world beyond what the reader actually reads, one where lions go to parties for a start. At this point, the editing and rewriting kicked in and we started trying to make it better.

Step 1 - useless words and adverbs

Straight away, look for the -ly words, a sure signpost of a flabby sentence. Did 'really' add anything? Is 'really angry' more angry than 'angry'? Maybe, but not much.

And look hard at every instance of 'that'. You probably don't need them. We didn't here.

The lion was angry because nobody had told him the party was supposed to be fancy dress.

Already it's better.

Step 2 - challenge the flabby bits

'Nobody had told him'? Hmm. Do we need the 'had'?

And 'supposed to be'? Hmm once again. Did we need any of that?

The lion was angry because nobody told him the party was fancy dress.

Ooh, much nicer. Much tighter. But still not quite right.

Step 3 - emphasise the emotion

Yes, we know the lion was angry, but it doesn't exactly leap off the page. And we'd already killed the idea of 'really angry'. Could we make it feel stronger? How about 'The lion was raging'? Much nicer.

And if you're getting into the land of anger and rage, you want short, clipped sentences, making things feel harsher and sharper. So we split our sentence into two and got rid of another word into the bargain. 'Because' is regularly another of those filler words - it feels essential in your first draft, but can often disappear in the rewrites.

The lion was raging. Nobody told him the party was fancy dress.

Much, much better.

Step 4 - add real character

The one thing still lacking for me was any character. Our lion is 'the lion', which is the equivalent of saying 'a lion' - any old lion, one lion of many. Was there a way to give him a bit more spark and interest?

How about we drop the 'The'?

Lion was raging. Nobody told him the party was fancy dress.

Boom. There we have it. Not just 'the lion', no. Suddenly this is a story about 'Lion' - a figure immediately invested with character. No longer a description, Lion has become a name.

In twenty minutes we went from:
The lion was really angry because nobody had told him that the party was supposed to be fancy dress.
To:
Lion was raging. Nobody told him the party was fancy dress.

I know which version I prefer. The second one is 8 words shorter, but is invested with at least 8 times the character and intrigue. And I think it's much funnier too.


I'd recommend any budding writers to give this exercise a go. It's a good way of sharpening your skills and getting practice at honing your words into lethal weapons.

There is a famous story about Hemingway being challenged to write a story in only six words. He apparently thought for a moment and then scribbled the following on a back of a napkin: For Sale: baby shoes. Never worn.

He won the bet. Could you?

It's all about the length...

When I first started writing Red Mercury I just got on with it, trying to write a few hundred words every day, keeping the story moving along. However, after a few weeks I started to worry about how long it 'needed' to be. Was this going to be a short story? A novella? A novel? What length is a book?

Looking online, the general consensus seems to be anything less than twenty thousand words or so is a short story. Anything above that but less than forty thousand words is a novella. Anything more than that is a novel. As a result of this info, I became slightly obsessed with hitting 40k and writing a 'proper book'.

As it was, my first draft came in at just over forty thousand words, and I was all pleased with myself. However, my ruthless editor (ie. wife) has a great eye for padding and pointless paragraphs, and through judicious use of the red pen, reduced that first draft by a full 10%. She decimated it. Literally.

There is no doubt in my mind that the story is much better as a result of this pruning - punchier, sharper, more active, more exciting. But now it's not a 'proper novel'.

I've decided to refer to is a 'novella', even though I don't really like the word. I think  it's a bit fey - especially for an action story. But novella it is. The last thing I want when I finally publish is for anyone to complain that it's shorter than they expected.

Of course, over time, the requirement for such a distinction is going to completely evaporate. That 40k number was originally driven by the minimum page count which old hardback binding technology could handle. Over hundreds of years, this technological requirement has created an expectation in people's heads about how long a book needs to be. But in the world of e-books all these old standards will eventually wither away. We're going to end up with short stories, long stories, short novels, long novels, epic trilogies - and their 'length' will be essentially invisible, experienced only as the reader reads, rather than in measureable inches of dead tree visible on a bookstore shelf.

My favourite story ever is one that Gibbo tells about another mate, Irish Dave. I doubt the word count on that one goes above a couple of hundred. Not one of them is safe for online publication.