Write Now: the writing tips blog

Last week, we set our readers a challenge: to shorten a paragraph and tweet it to us at @EmphasisWriting, with the hashtag #EmphasisTest, using Stan Carey’s tips on writing concisely for Twitter.

We’ve had some excellent responses – which you can see here on Storify – and choosing a winner has been very tricky indeed.

The paragraph given was:

It is generally agreed among writing specialists that the more unnecessary detail you include in a piece of prose, the more work it becomes for the typical reader. Or as the English poet Robert Browning expressed it: ‘Less is more.’

What to keep in?

This paragraph breaks down into three concepts: first, that this is advice from writing experts; second, that unnecessary detail makes it harder for your reader; and, third, that Browning summed it up with ‘Less is more’.

These three elements are vital to conveying the meaning of the paragraph. Remove the first and you lose the context. Remove the second and you lose the advice. Remove the third and you lose the wit.

Most people who responded sensed this and kept all three, reducing the character count by trimming. But a few opted for a more strident approach. For example:

@emphasiswriting Good prose is brief. #EmphasisTest

(Doesn’t give any advice about how to achieve it, or why, and omits the quotation.)

@emphasiswriting adage “Less is more” = good both for reader & writer #EmphasisTest

(Doesn’t put the quotation in context, or give advice about how to achieve it.)

These are both nice and snappy, and work well on their own. But they don’t convey the whole sense of the original paragraph. Whenever you’re editing, especially if it’s someone else’s material, be cautious when cutting content.

Make sure that you only cut unnecessary detail, and otherwise restrict yourself to tightening up the wording and phrasing. Be careful, also, not to introduce suggestions that weren’t in the original. For example:

@emphasiswriting #EmphasisTest At least writing specialists agree on one thing – leave out unnecessary detail

(Omits the quotation, then adds a sense of incompleteness with ‘at least’ and ‘[agree] on one thing’.)

Choose your words carefully

When you’re trying to shave off a character here and a character there, it can be tempting to switch to a shorter word or an abbreviation, even if it slightly changes the meaning. Treat this temptation with caution.

In the following example, the tweeter saved five letters by replacing ‘unnecessary details’ with ‘useless details’.

@emphasiswriting The more useless details in a text, the harder for the typical reader to get it:”less is more”said R.Browning #EmphasisTest

However, useless and unnecessary have subtly different meanings. The former is of no use, no merit, ever. The latter is simply not needed – possibly ever, or possibly just at this time or in this situation. For the sake of brevity, needless could be a good alternative. It’s one character longer than useless, but then you can scrape one back again by cutting details to detail. Be strict, too, with your contractions. The there’s in the tweet below, for example, feels rather unnatural.

@emphasiswriting ‘Less is more’ – the more unnecessary detail there’s in a text, the more work it will take to read. #EmphasisTest

An alternative might have been to spell out the there is, but contract the it will to it’ll.

Keep an eye on tone

As anyone who’s ever sent a ‘cheeky’ email that landed them in hot water will know, in writing there’s a fine line between wit and bad manners. You can’t count on the person reading your message in the same playful spirit that you wrote it. Combine this with the fact that brevity can sometimes come across as brusqueness, and you’ve got a small but perfectly formed powder keg.

I don’t think I’d dare to word client advice like this, for example:

@emphasiswriting Pro writers and R. Browning agree–keep it simple, stupid. #EmphasisTest

The shortlist We’ve received many excellent tweets, and choosing between them has been very difficult. We loved this one (though note it comes from a professional editor):

@emphasiswriting Writing experts agree: Needless detail=more work for readers. Robert Browning said it better: “Less is more.” #EmphasisTest

And this one (again, a professional editor):

@emphasiswriting Most writing experts advise: to help your reader, omit unnecessary details. “Less is more”—Robert Browning #EmphasisTest

And this one (though we’d suggest using a single em- or en-dash before ‘Robert Browning’, rather than brackets):

@emphasiswriting #EmphasisTest Tip from writing specialists: too much detail makes readers work too hard. “Less is more” (Robert Browning).

And many more.

But the one we’ve chosen as the winner is:

@emphasiswriting Pro writers broadly agree: excess detail = more work for the av. reader. Or ‘Less is more’—Robert Browning. #EmphasisTest

So congratulations to @WalesPPA, AKA Jac Bond, soon to be the happy owner of a slick, swish, shiny prize, the envy of all his acquaintances. (OK, OK, it’s a book on mnemonics. But we think it’s very cool.)

So, what would you have done, smartypants?

Before we opened the challenge to the public, both Emphasis CEO Rob Ashton and I had a go ourselves. Feel free to use the comments section below to put us through the mill, as we surely deserve.

Rob’s version:

@emphasiswriting Most writing experts say extra detail means extra work for the reader. Browning was right: less is more. #EmphasisTest

And mine:

@EmphasisWriting The more unnecessary detail you put in a piece, the harder it is to read. To quote Browning, ‘Less is more.’ #EmphasisTest

<<Read the March 2013 e-bulletin

If you were nervous about using Twitter in a professional capacity already, the past month’s headlines about 10,000 tweeters having potentially libelled Conservative peer Lord McAlpine probably won’t have helped your confidence. But tweeting doesn’t have to be the minefield it’s often presented as. Just remember to treat it with the same respect that you would any public communication and you can’t go far wrong, writes Cathy Relf.

Here are four tips that you’d naturally apply to face-to-face or written communication. Apply the same rules to your tweets and you’ll soon find you’re opening up a whole new channel of sector-specific news, networking and chat.

1. Strike a balance

One of the trickier aspects of tweeting in connection with work is that you need to balance being professional with being personable. If everything you tweet is dry, factual and work-related, few people are likely to want to follow you. On the other hand, if you only ever tweet about football and nights out, you’re likely to alienate colleagues and clients with whom you have only profession in common.

The answer is moderation. Of course it’s fine to tweet about both work and football – just make sure there’s a balance. Twitter is an informal space and your followers are hoping to see a little personality, otherwise they’d simply look you up on your company website. They just don’t want to know what you had for breakfast.

Don’t monitor your follower numbers too closely, though, or read too much into losing a few now and then. If your follower count is on a general upward trend, that’s good. But don’t check it more than once a week. It will fluctuate daily and hourly, partly because some people use programs that follow and unfollow accounts on their behalf. Incidentally, we wouldn’t recommend you do this, any more than you’d employ someone to make and dispose of your face-to-face acquaintances.

2. Don’t be a bore

Remember, just like a conversation in the office or the pub, it’s not meant to be a monologue. If people mention you or respond to your tweets, reply to them. If the only thing that responds to your tweets is tumbleweed, resist the urge to just repeat the same tweets again, and instead ask yourself why.

Perhaps you tweeted at a time when people tend not to be looking at Twitter. (There are apps that can help you with this.) Commuting hours and lunchbreaks are often good times to get conversations going. Or perhaps your tweets aren’t reaching many people simply because you don’t have many followers – in which case, try following other people and responding to their tweets. They’re likely to do the same in return. Or perhaps you’re tweeting things that don’t invite a response. Try asking a question to get things going.

In fact, one of the best things about Twitter is that it puts a whole community of communicators at your fingertips, many of whom are willing to share their opinions. It’s a great opportunity for brainstorming and feedback. For example, when I was planning this article, I thought it might be helpful to start by asking people what kind of behaviour they disliked on Twitter. The answers came flooding in (occasionally a little swearily, be warned), and I’ve used Storify to collate them.

3. Keep it wise … and legal

Remember that unless you’ve set your account to ‘protected’ (where only your followers can see your tweets), everything you write is visible to everyone, whether they’re a member of Twitter or not. So it’s not the place to complain about your boss, your colleagues, your clients … or anyone else.

Be as careful with the truth on Twitter as you would when publishing material in any other place. Libel is the publication of matter that is false and defamatory. That includes tweets and RTs, even if you delete them later and even if your account is set to protected. Earlier this month, lawyers for Lord McAlpine identified more than 10,000 potentially libellous tweets incorrectly linking him with child sex abuse. The fact that the tweets were triggered by a misleading Newsnight report hasn’t prevented Lord McAlpine taking action against some of the tweeters. Nor has the fact that in some cases they made only mysterious observations, rather than direct allegations.

There’s a simple way to stay out of this kind of trouble: never tweet or retweet anything that you’re not one hundred per cent sure is true, especially if it has the potential to damage the reputation of a person or a company.

4. Learn the lingo

You’re probably as keen on LOLs and ROFLs as we are (ie not very), so we’re not going to discuss those here. However, there are a few Twitter-specific abbreviations that you need to know, if you don’t already.

DM – direct message. These can only be seen by the person you’re sending them to. Everything else is visible to everyone. You can only DM someone if they already follow you, and they can only reply if you follow them.

RT – retweet. There are two ways to RT. Either you can click the retweet symbol to replicate the original message exactly, or you can do a manual retweet by copying and pasting the text, preceded by ‘RT @username’. This allows you to add your own comment at the start of the tweet.

MT – modified tweet. Sometimes when you do a manual RT you’ll run out of space and have to cut a little of the original. In this case, write ‘MT @username’ instead.

HT – hat tip. When you want to tweet about something that you found out about via another user, but you don’t want to use their own words, it’s polite to mention them with an HT (or a ‘via’).

#hashtags. These are meant to make searching for subjects easier. So, for example, if you’re tweeting something about Brighton, you might hashtag the word #Brighton. However, people often use them to add witticisms to the end of their tweets. #becausetheythinkitsclever (Incidentally, you can’t use punctuation in a hashtag. Yes, that ‘its’ pained me.)

FF – follow Fridays. On Fridays, some users share their favourite tweeters to encourage others to follow them. It’s a compliment, so it’s polite to thank them. But retweeting it to show off your popularity is a no-no.

In the December issue of the Write Away e-bulletin, we show you five ways that tools and apps can make your tweeting more effective.