Can you condense what you need to say?
A few months ago, I met a writer whose article I plan to print in the magazine’s next issue. He’s a font of true-life anecdotes.
Like other natural communicators, he enjoys telling longs stories. But he could, if pressed, tell a short version.
For writers, that’s a wonderful skill.
I wanted to include my new friend’s article. But space was tight. He’d written 1,500 words, and I had room for 1,100.
He’d written the eight-minute version
of a story he could’ve told in five.
Yet as I examined his prose, I realized there was no problem. He’d written the eight-minute version of a story he could easily have told in five.
I took his 1,500 words and condensed them to 1,100. But now I wonder: Why hadn’t he done that in the first place?
