Working With Word Limits / Requirements

About two hundred years ago, people were paid by the word.  Novels which were serialised in News Papers would have a great deal of ‘extra’ to push up the cash.

In 1922 Reader’s Digest came into being.   What it did would be to trim items, especially novels.  The skilled editors could remove all unnecessary events, words, etc.

There were, coming up to the creation of the Internet, two ‘schools’ of thought.   There was the long and intricate story with all sorts of information, and the sharp, to the point,  article where there were few adverbs and adjectives.

This was, of course, influenced by ‘telegrams’, quick short bursts of information.   Unlike written letters which took forever to get from here to there, a telegram was almost immediate.    This led to a kind of abbreviated manner of writing.

The Inverted Pyramid style; that is, main points first, information proceeding after became standard for most news papers;  “Man Shot Dead in Cross Roads” is the headline, and the article gives the name of the man, where he was shot,when he was shot,  and what happened.

The Internet has created a new kind of reader, people who want their information fast.   They want to finish the article and move on.   They don’t want to wallow.

In ancient days, one would curl up with a novel and read each sentence and visualise them, sometimes drifting off into reverie, imagining themselves in the environment of the Novel.

In modern days, people want to get the data in and quickly process it, before moving on to the next thought.

Those who are used to writing 2500 word items find themselves having to chop.   Those used to writing short bits have to add.

The long writer has to develop a vocabulary in which s/he can same the same thing in one word that takes a sentence.

“The speaker began this overly profuse train of compliments directed to the judges,” writes the verbose.
“The speaker engaged in persiflage,”  writes the sharp.

There are many words which condense thought so one simply needs to increase their vocabulary and remove as many adjectives and adverbs as possible.

The first removal is ‘very’.   It is a totally unnecessary term.   “She was unhappy.”   Writing “She was very unhappy” as if to rate unhappiness is not necessary.

The word ‘that’ is over used.   “She saw that it was time for her to close that latch, so she told him that she was going outside to close the latch.”   “It was time to close the latch so she told him why she was going out.”

Going over the long item to remove repetition is the next step.   One doesn’t need to say the same thing in six different ways.   This tends to happen when one is not sure they are being clear.

Cutting an item from two thousand and five hundred words to one thousand to fit into the requirements and not lose the essence of the article takes a bit of skill, but it can be done as successfully as Reader’s Digest has proven.

The other side of the coin is to stretch a shorter item to reach a word requirement.

This is easier than the former.

When one must cut an item to fit a word limit, they have to invest thought so as not to cut vital facts or remove too much explanation.

When one has to enlarge an item, all one needs to do is go sentence by sentence and add words.

For example; that the first two sentences of this article;

About two hundred years ago, people were paid by the word.  Novels which were serialised in News Papers would have a great deal of ‘extra’ to push up the cash.

If one had to lengthen it to match a requirement, it is simple to add words and concepts.

“There was a time, perhaps about two hundred years ago, when authors of various fiction and non-fiction works received payment based on the length of the item.   People were paid by the word.   If one reads an item written around that time, which was serialised in a  newspaper, one will see how much ‘stuffing’ went into it. Many ideas were shoved in, many descriptions which did not move the story forward, even the introduction of characters or concepts which were irrelevant, all done to gain more coin.”

The ability to be flexible, to be able to write a long or short piece makes the successful writer.