BRIEF BECOMING BETTER
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
Anyone can write short tweets, long wandering blogs, or novel-length tomes.
But shorter is better if we want to stir readers’ attention.
“Write one true sentence. Then write another.” – Ernest Hemingway.
Among his many significant celebrated works, he wrote his six-word novel that way:
For Sale, baby shoes, never used.
If we waste fewer words, angst, and time – life should be better, doesn’t everyone agree?
We talk a lot when less would be better.
We write a lot when less could be more.
It takes longer to write something shorter when conveying a large message but in the fewest and most effective words possible. Time invested in tightening and polishing any message pays off because we then say it better.
Better still, sometimes, that extra time instructs us not to send or publish it at all.