Tight writing is clear, concise, and well paced. When a novel, short story, nonfiction book, article, or blog post contains no superfluous words or phrases, the writing flows and is easy to understand.

 

If you’re writing for readers, write tight. If you’re writing for pleasure, include all the superfluous words you want. But if you determine your piece has value for readers, delete the superfluous words before offering it to readers.

 

Which words are superfluous? Unnecessary adjectives, weasel words (vague qualifiers, such as generally, probably, and most), and purple prose (flowery, elaborate, or emotional writing). Extra words—that is, words you can cut without changing the meaning of the sentence or losing a narrator’s or character’s voice—are words you should probably cut. This is not a blanket call to cut all adjectives or qualifiers. Rather, you want to use those extra words sparingly.

 

For the sake of brevity, this post will focus on the use of adjectives. Part II will focus on weasel words, purple prose, and other words or phrases that bloat our writing. In the meantime, an internet search for the terms mentioned will offer you a plethora of articles to aid your learning.

 

 

Adjectives are words that describe or modify nouns and pronouns, as in the green car, the tall man, the talkative teenager. Consider cutting adjectives when they aren’t necessary. Take this sentence, for example:

 

As Bob dressed for his third blind date, he slipped his bare feet into his azure blue faux snakeskin loafers and smiled. “Perfect. What woman could resist these beauties?”

 

Which of the adjectives could we cut to tighten the sentence? First, any redundant adjective has to go. Which adjective is redundant? Either azure or blue. Azure is always blue, making one of the words unnecessary.

 

Second, any adjective that does not advance the story or that simply takes up space needs to go too. In our sentence, is the color of Bob’s shoes important? Do we need azure or blue? If not, both modifying adjectives can be cut. In this context, the color of Bob’s shoes is unnecessary information. Is there a context in which the color of Bob’s shoes would be necessary? Possibly. If you are writing a scene that includes multiple men wearing faux snakeskin loafers, then the color might prove important.

 

Other adjectives we can cut without changing the meaning of the sentence are third and bare. Although each adjective relays information about Bob, cutting them doesn’t change the overall meaning or point of the sentence. Could they serve an important function? Possibly. If you want to emphasize that Bob is a triple loser, you might keep third. And if you want to set up a scene in which Bob’s feet emit an offensive odor when he kicks his shoes off, you might want to keep bare. But unless you have a specific reason for such details, don’t clutter sentences with them.

 

What about the adjective blind in the sentence? Is it superfluous? In this instance, blind clarifies the event taking place. I’d leave it, although Bob’s dialogue might be enough to suggest a blind date. When in doubt, clarify.

 

Let’s look at faux snakeskin. Are those descriptors superfluous? In this context, no. They show something about Bob relevant to the event. You might tighten the sentence by writing that Bob put on “cheap loafers,” exchanging two words for one, but cheap tells, whereas faux snakeskin shows, creating a mental picture and strengthening the overall perception of Bob’s character.

 

Finally, you can tighten the sentence even more by deleting his feet. If someone is slipping into loafers, it’s assumed the feet are doing the slipping.

 

The tightened sentence reads:

 

As Bob dressed for his blind date, he slipped on his faux snakeskin loafers and smiled. “Perfect. What woman could resist these beauties?”

 

If I meet Bob on a blind date, I will have no problem resisting his footwear, but I digress. Note: digressions are often superfluous, but they may add character or humor to the text. Of course, like all writing, a digression’s effectiveness will be determined by subjective readers. Sigh.

 

Tightening our writing may seem like an exercise in stunting creativity or silencing a writer’s unique voice, but it isn’t and does neither. Instead, it stretches our skills by encouraging choices that enhance our writing. For example, rather than using a weak phrase to convey action, we can choose one strong verb.

 

Bob walked quickly toward his date. The light from the mirrored ball hanging from the ceiling reflected off his faux snakeskin loafers.

 

Replace walked quickly with a strong verb to show your readers something more about Bob.

 

           Bob skipped toward his date . . .

 

Bob does have a certain charm, don’t you think?

 

Write tight without losing your creativity or your voice.

 

Stay tuned for Write Tight, Part 2.

 

 

 

 

Because you asked, this month’s column tackles that highly contentious punctuation mark known as the serial (or series) comma—shunned by many, revered by most, and lamented by at least one Tips & Tools reader. 

 

To borrow from the much-loved Lewis Carroll poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter,”

 

“The time has come,” the editor said,

“To talk of serial things:

Of shoes, ships, and sealing-wax—”
 

And the fact that, according to Benjamin Dryer, chief editor at Random House, only “godless savages eschew the series comma” (Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style).

 

Ooh, them is fighting words!

 

Sometimes called the Oxford comma, Harvard comma, or Captain Crunch comma (serial comma, get it?), the serial comma separates the last and next-to-last items in a series.

 

Whatever you call it, use it.

 

A series consists of three or more words, phrases, or clauses—as in these clauses from the same poem:

 

           Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, 

           Their shoes were clean and neat—

 

Notice that while the final item in a series is often connected with a conjunction (and, or, or but), it doesn’t have to be.

 

The Chicago Manual of Style, the authority for published works in the United States, strongly recommends using the serial comma, calling it a “widely practiced usage, blessed by Fowler and other authorities . . . since it prevents ambiguity” (CMOS, 17th ed., 6.19). Such ambiguity can occur with compound elements and appositives. 

Compound Elements

Consider my shopping list. How many items would I like?

 

Please buy milk, cookies, macaroni and cheese.

 

If you counted three, you’re right. The last two nouns refer to just one item: the familiar meal-in-a-box labeled “Macaroni and Cheese.” The omission of a comma after macaroni signals a compound element (remember, a conjunction is not required before the final element). 

 

How about now?

 

           Please buy milk, cookies, macaroni, and cheese.

 

Now I’m asking for four items, including a bag of pasta and a wedge of cheese. No familiar blue box here!

 

It’s time to join a tea party with . . . how many guests?

Alice enjoyed tea with her new friends, Tweedledum, and Tweedledee.

 

Alice is sipping tea with at least four friends and maybe more: (1) new friends (perhaps the White Rabbit and Humpty Dumpty), (2) Tweedledum, and (3) Tweedledee. But let’s drop the last comma. Now how many guests?

 

Alice enjoyed tea with her new friends, Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

 

Without the serial comma, we see that Alice had tea with her new friends—Tweedledum and Tweedledee (the names are called an appositive).

 

To make matters worse, as noted by Bryan A. Garner (a CMOS coauthor), failure to use the serial comma in legal documents often results in very expensive “litigable ambiguities” (LawProse Lesson #68).

 

Then why do some people believe the serial comma isn’t necessary? Perhaps because journalists do not follow CMOS. They follow The Associated Press Stylebook (AP), which omits the serial comma—a tradition meant to save space and ink in printed copy. Check out any newspaper or magazine, printed or digital, and you will not find the serial comma. But APstyle governs only journalism. For the rest of us, economy is not as important as clarity.

 

There is one exception to the rule to use the serial comma. When using an ampersand instead of the word and, as in business names, omit the serial comma:

 

           The Law Firm of Alice, Tweedledum & Tweedledee

 

But when do we use the ampersand? Sounds like a question for another “Ask the Editor” column.

Ann Cathleen Neumann has enjoyed a decades-long career as a writing instructor and freelance editor, teaching at several universities and offering professional training for the state of California. Recently, she shifted her focus to the Christian market, editing for authors and writing her own fiction under her pen name, Cate Touryan. Ann lives on the central coast of California with her husband, her Yorkie, and a rafter of turkeys—as in both a whole bunch of them and in the rafters. She has yet to turn them into story, but when she does, their identities will not be concealed. 

For information about Ann’s editorial services, send an email detailing your editing needs to ann.neumann@gmail.com. As a member of Ginny’s Fiction Crafters Cohort, Ann is drafting a middle grade novel while sketching out a literary fiction novel.