IWSG: 300

Wikipedia

I am not writing about 

the iconic movie 300;

but rather, about the need to limit 
IWSG posts to 300 words.

IWSG

Yikes!  
The guilt I felt when I discovered that dictum!  

I had just published my verbose June IWSG post.

Do you struggle with verbosity?

I do.

I love this antiquated Chinese character Zhé,

meaning verbose.

Arguably, 
it is the most complex Chinese character,

with its sixty-four strokes.

Read on, and see why that makes me laugh!

Wikimedia ~ Erin Silversmith

I remember my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Keast,

teaching a lesson on using adjectives in  descriptive writing.  

Wowza!  I fell in love with adjectives!  

I crafted a sentence about my house containing ~ 

I counted them ~ 

sixty-four adjectives!

I thought my sentence brilliant;  

Mr. Keast did not.  

He called my mother for a conference.  

He thought I was mocking him. 

The two sorted out my personality, 

and I learned that the liberal use of adjectives

was inadvisable.

  

I never wrote another sentence with sixty-four adjectives.  

I became a seeker of the succinct.

I have failed miserably many times.

Succinct writing takes effort.

Chopping, 

refining, 

and choosing the precise word

do not come easily for me.

It's a slog.

My mantra is advice

from William Strunk Jr.

who co-wrote 

the indispensable reference

The Elements of Style.

"Vigorous writing is concise."

Wikipedia

The complete quote: 

“Vigorous writing is concise. 

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, 

a paragraph no unnecessay sentences, 

for the same reason 

that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines 

and a machine no unnecessary parts. 

This requires not that the writer make all sentences short 

or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, 

but that every word tell.”

Strunk

Make.  Every.  Word.  Count.  

Seek brevity, but without sacrificing clarity.

Thanks for the challenging dictum, IWSG!

It improves my writing.

Wowza!