Good writing is tight writing.

Or we might say . . .

Tight writing is good writing.

Either way, the best writing wastes no words and contains no unnecessary information. That is, it’s tight.

Here are two examples of writing that is not tight. See if you can decipher these well-known axioms:

1. A condition characterized by tardiness is more desirable than one that is systematically marked by eternal absenteeism.

2. In the absence of the feline race, certain small rodents will give themselves up to various pleasures.

What do those phrases mean? You’ll know them in their original form.

1. Better late than never.

2. When the cat’s away the mice will play.

You see, then, that tight writing is also clear writing. Tight writing is also informative writing. You’ll say more with tight writing, because the fewer words you need, the more ideas you’ll squeeze in.

So here’s how to write tightly.

Eliminate unnecessary words

This 13-word sentence can be reduced to four words.

     Shoppers will save money when they buy their food and groceries at Safeway.

Here’s what we’ll do: Get rid of will; it adds nothing. Kill money; what else would you save while shopping? The phrase when they buy can go; we go to the store to buy items, of course. Eliminate their; it’s unnecessary. Drop food and groceries because we know that’s what we buy at Safeway. (There’s little difference between food and groceries anyway.)

Now we have:

     Shoppers save at Safeway.

There’s one critical caveat—don’t change the meaning. Look again at the above sentences. Does the second mean essentially the same as the first? Sure. And I saved nine words; that’s tight writing.

Replace weak verbs with strong ones

You’ll remember the concept of “helping” or “linking” verbs from high school English. These verbs carry no real meaning. Replacing them with more forceful verbs saves words. In this sentence was is a weak verb.

     Sheila was an excellent student in college.

Replace was with a stronger verb and excellent student with an adverb to get:

     Sheila excelled academically in college.

Seven words became five. That’s tight writing.

Use active voice, not passive voice

In active voice, the subject is doing the acting. In passive voice, the subject is being acted on. Passive voice isn’t tight. Here’s an example. Note how the subject is being acted on in the first sentence and doing the acting in the second sentence.

     Passive: Our burgers are enjoyed by kids of all ages.

     Active: Kids of all ages enjoy our burgers.

We tightened nine words into seven.

Watch for redundancy

     My workout left me tired and exhausted.

Yes, technically there’s a difference between being tired and exhausted, but you don’t need both. Decide if you’re tired or exhausted and use only that word.

Avoid filler words

     Acme widgets make such a great product.

What does such add? Nothing.

     I work hard on and off of the court.

Kill of.

Eliminate ion words

     My pain relief cream doesn’t cause any burning sensations.

     My pain relief cream doesn’t burn.

We cut nine words to six without changing meaning. That's tight writing.

To ensure your writing is tight, search your document looking for weak verbs, prepositions, passive voice, and ion words, and any words you just don’t need. Be ruthless and write tightly.