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How to Firm Up Flabby Prose

Copyright 2002-2008 Beth Mende Conny, WriteDirections.com. All rights reserved in all media.

The content of this article may be forwarded in full without special permission provided it is used for not-for-profit purposes and full attribution and copyright notice are given. For all other purposes, contact Beth Mende Conny Beth@WriteDirections.com.

Want to be a lean, mean, writing machine? Then put your words on a diet. Here are some great suggestions for cutting flab, firming muscle and punching up your prose.

Learn to strip
Brilliant as your prose may be, you likely can toss a word or two ... or three or twenty. Be brutal. Strip away the extraneous until your sentences go buck naked. They can then, like streakers, zip across your page.

Remember the if's
If you can say it in one page instead of three—do so.
If you can say it in one paragraph instead of three—do so.
If you can say it in one sentence instead of three—do so.
If you can say it in one word instead of three—do so.
If you can say it in a one-syllable word instead of one with three—do so.

Avoid repetitions, redundancies, reiterations, restatements ...

Take action
In writing, as in life, you can't sit there like a blob. You've got to use the active voice. Before and after examples:

Don't be dramatic
When possible, use the plainest words possible. For example, too often we use "exclaim", "declare" or "chime" when plain ole "said" would do. Said's a great word; it doesn't draw attention to itself. Readers skip over it and concentrate instead on what's being said. Other examples:

BTW—Sometimes people don't just walk; they really do meander, shuffle and saunter. Allow them their style, but keep your words in check.

Mix it up
Good writing has flow. One sentence rolls into the other, creating an ebb and flow of words. Stop the flow and you get writing like this:

Hot tip: Find three books written in a style even you understand. When you get stuck, say, on split infinitives, glance through all three for guidance. You'll find that three angles are better than one and almost always provide the guidance you need.

BTW—According to one of my grammar books, split infinitives are acceptable when writing informally. My other two books say no, no, no. Here, I defer to the minority.

Beth Mende Conny is the founder and president of WriteDirections.com. She has published more than four dozen books and collections, and helps individuals and businesses bring their projects to publication. She can be contacted at Beth@WriteDirections.com.