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Brevity is the soul of writ
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Tight, well-toned stories
save space and readers' time,
and shedding the flab need not be painful.
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By Matthew Crowley
The
business section or the blogs? “Adult Swim” or Sunday’s front page?
If stories aren’t clear and concise, seminar leader Chris Wienandt said, a reader’s
eyes may drift from articles to the Cartoon Network, or another diversion.
Wienandt focused on story tightening, major, minor and otherwise, in his seminar
“Nip/Tuck: Trimming the Fat From Stories” at the American Copy Editors Society’s
ninth-annual conference in Hollywood.
| ''NIP/TUCK: TRIMMING THE FAT FROM STORIES,'' presented by Chris Wienandt, Dallas
Morning News |
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Tight, bright sentences matter, Wienandt said, because
bad writing can drive readers away from stories. Readers see muddled copy and say
“why try.”
“One of the problems with stories is that they’re too damn long and boring,” he said.
“They’re written in a way that’s not interesting ... they’re too jargony, too journalesy.”
Often, Wienandt said, tighter (and shorter) stories seem more inviting to readers,
which may mean copy desks need to do the shortening. Cuts are sometimes both wise
and necessary, he said; a 40-inch story won’t fit in a 20-inch hole.
Weinandt described three approaches to story cutting: major surgery (big cuts); liposuction
(moderate fat trimming) and botox (a little cosmetic tightening).
Wienandt said Quick, a free weekly newspaper tabloid featuring drastically shorter
versions of stories from the Dallas Morning News, demonstrates brevity’s powerful
pull. Many regular newspapers are losing circulation, he said, but Quick is gaining.
Some Morning News writers resent having their stories reworked for Quick, but Wienandt
said they might resent it less if they read the tightened versions. Some stories,
he said, seem more readable once revised.
Wienandt shared a list of bloat-blasting tips from Steve Kenny, Quick’s managing
editor. Kenny said copy editors should ask themselves:
1. Whether a story needs an anecdotal lead.
Which, Wienandt asked, would you rather read:
“Sally Blow walks the halls of her high school, her steps weighted down carrying
textbooks from …”
or:
“Schools are assigning more textbooks than ever and students are forced to carry
the burden — on their backs.”
2. Whether the writer has tried to cram too many ideas into a story.
“Concentrate on one idea — the lead,” Kenny wrote. “and supporting arguments
and secondary ideas that back it up.”
Bullet points and graphics can complement stories and help reduce wordiness, Wienandt
suggested, providing information and details a scanning reader can catch quickly.
3. Whether all of a story’s quotes are necessary.
Sometimes, Kenny wrote, quotes repeat the set-up paragraphs that precede them
and then run on unnecessarily. However, Kenny advised editors to trim quotes carefully;
cuts shouldn’t change context.
4. Whether writing weighs stories down.
-- Structure slows readers, Kenny said, especially when writers overuse
dependent clauses in mistaken efforts to provide context. Too many dependent clauses
will slow flow and repel readers; writers would be better off making their points
and then providing context. Copy editors should also watch for prepositional phrases,
which can interrupt flow, and see if possessives, adjectives or adverbs might work
better in their place.
-- Background can bog down stories, too, Kenny wrote. Too much history and
too little news may make readers think they're reading a “process” story without
much meat. Background boxes can provide essential background and leave story space
for news, he suggested.
-- Jargon is another reader turn-off. Writers may seem to write for sources,
parroting back industry lingo they think sources want to hear. Telling a story in
a source’s complicated language lets that source influence the a story’s reporting.
Reporters can do better, Kenny suggested.
“If you know your stuff, you can tell it in a simple way your sources will respect.”
Shortening stories is painstaking and often slow, Wienandt said. Editors should trim
judiciously and carefully, he said. They shouldn’t change things just to impress
the slot and they should try to respect the writer’s voice.
“If you can trim these stories in a way that writers don’t notice that you’ve done
anything, (that) is the best possible editing you can do,” he said.
Matthew Crowley is a business copy editor for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. |
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