Writing Craft: A Lesson on Brevity
To push the boundaries of word economy, a writer must learn the difficult art of brevity. I find it remarkably hard to master this particular art, despite my love for short work in both poetry and prose. The topic of economy in writing is both strengthened and weakened by an understanding of poetry. Poetry emphasizes the importance of each word. However, it draws heavily upon the subconscious imagery of the symbol — an easy thing to do in today’s emoji-laden communication. Composition doesn’t have that simple workaround, so needs to rely on craft and word choice. A writer must, instead, tap into the near-science of paragraph construction to convey important ideas quickly.
In classes, I’ve heard complaints about populating the required 700-word essay responses. In creative writing circles, I’ve read lamentations of the same limitation. A five-paragraph work of about 700 words seems highly limiting in today’s text modes. Crafting a paragraph feels like an arcane magic. The five paragraphs should be around eight sentences and 120 words. For reference, my previous paragraph was 112 words and seven sentences — right on target. In these eight sentences, you need a topic sentence in the first position and a transition in the final position. For those struggling to meet the word minimum, these two posts are a boon; they are a bane to the prolix writer. Many of us are, unfortunately.
