Day 38
Writing is a skill. In here I send notes of my writing from the 50 days of writing course by David Perell, to reflect, develop and build my writing style.
In the 38th email from the 50 days of writing, David Perell talks about eliminating weak, wasted and redundant words from the article.
David compares weak words as the difference between a high-end restaurants and American chains where the quantity of the food is a signal to quality. He further mentions wasted words will slow our momentum of writing and finally redundant words are words that has no reason but to repeat something that has already been communicated. Redundant words are like the restaurant hostess who tell you the menu and again the waiter tells you the same thing.
David mentions these words are not good in writing and here's what he says -
You can avoid these three deadly sins by compressing your sentences. If you can reduce ten words to five without altering the meaning of your sentences, do it. For a more intuitive approach, you can also improve your writing by writing entire sections from memory or talking about your ideas.
My thoughts:
I used to look for words that are adding impact to the point I am trying to make. In school essays, I used to fill out and really add more unnecessary words in the essay just to fulfill the word count.
David made me recollect those moments where I was scouting for words to make it look pretty where in truth is, beauty lies in Simplicity.
To better understand I can point to only one tweet thread that is Written by Sahil Bloom, about the Richard Feynman.
The Feynman Technique is a foundational mental model for unlocking growth in your career, startup, business, or writing.
— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) February 6, 2021
A thread on how it works and how it can change your life... pic.twitter.com/7MFj3luEIr
In these techniques, One of them is basically explaining something to a 5 year old. This takes a lot of brevity as it seems simple but is hard to achieve.
Make sure to write where people can understand the point you are trying to make. Otherwise, the whole point of reducing redundant words, wasted and weak words will be
Key takeaways:
- Eliminate unnecessary words, waste words and redundant words from the Article.
- Nobody likes to listen/read same thing twice.
- Make your writing so good, that a 5 year can read and understand.
Thank you for reading.
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