Brevity in writing
Most people use a page to say what could have been said in a sentence.
In school we’re taught to write as many words as possible to get a good grade. Somewhere along the way, we were conditioned to believe that longer is better. People assume that the more you can write about a subject, the more you must know about it.
I think the opposite is true.
If you can make something complicated simple, you probably understand it better than someone who needs three pages to explain it.
For example:
“What’s an em dash?”
“Well… it’s like a line that’s used a lot in writing, and ChatGPT started using it a lot, so now when people see one they think it was written by Ai. But really, it’s like,have you ever wanted to create a pause for effect? Yeah, well that’s when you use an em dash.”
That was a mouthful.
It could have been…
“It’s a long dash, similar to a hyphen, that’s used to create a pause in a sentence.”
Simple. To the point.
A writer can fill pages with fluff and say absolutely nothing, or they can say everything in a single sentence.
We have to stop thinking longer is better when the truth is, a sentence that is too short, is better than a sentence that is too long.
Brevity is about removing everything that weakens the idea.
Don’t write more.
Say more.