Write Tight : Say Exactly What You Mean with Precision and Power

Foreword vii Introduction: A Tight Fit Into Today's World 1 1. The Four Levels of Wordiness and How to Tackle Them 5 Learn the secrets of idea selection, manuscript planning, writing to feed into the manuscript's focus, and trimming and revising. 2. Sixteen Types of Wordiness and How to Trim Them 19 Specific advice on identifying and eliminating common wordweeds, including the affected, the circuitous, the empty, the evasive, and many others. 3. Prewriting Tight 83 Tips on keeping your writing concise even at the first-draft stage. 4. Testing Your Writing for Flab 89 Verbal aerobics to trim your writing into shape. 5. The Danger Signs of Wordiness 113 Keys to verbal vigilance how to spot little problems in your writing that could signal bigger problems. 6. Exercises for Developing Your Awareness of Concision 123 A variety of methods for loosening and tightening your prose. 7. Reducing the Mental Length of Your Manuscript 131 What to do when your writing is slow (or just seems to be). 8. Nonverbal Streamlining 137 Physical elements such as sidebars, subheads, and checklists can trim your prose to improve readability. 9. How Tight Is Too Tight? 151 How and when to loosen up to preserve clarity, emphasis, and flow without risking wordiness. 10. Putting It All Together: Writing Light 165 Pulling triggers in your reader's brain. Learn how to rely on what your reader already knows. 11. Tips for Trimming During Manuscript Revision 179 Recollection in tranquility can help you spot the wordiness that creeps in during the early writing stages. 12. Shave and a Haircut and a Few Bits 187 A potpourri of do's and don'ts to keep your writing at fighting weight. Bibliography and Sources 193 Appendix: A Baedeker of the Redundant 195 Apologia 205 Index 207 About the Author 223