Streamlining Sentences: Eliminating Wordiness

Why Bother with Brevity?

In writing, every word should serve a purpose. Unnecessary words, or "wordiness," don't just take up space; they dilute your message, slow the reader down, and can make your ideas seem less confident. As you're interested in writing for video, this principle is even more critical. An audience's attention is a precious resource.

As one guide for video scriptwriting puts it, "Clarity is kindness." Making your writing concise is an act of respect for your audience.

The Toolkit for Trimming the Fat

So, how do we "trim the fat"? There are several reliable techniques. The following video provides an excellent overview of the most common and effective strategies for making your writing less wordy. We'll break it down piece by piece.

Now, let's dive into some specific techniques from the video and other resources.

1. Replace Weak Verbs and Bloated Phrases

One of the quickest ways to make a sentence stronger is to replace a weak verb phrase with a single, powerful verb. Weak phrases often rely on "to be" verbs (is, are, was, were) or vague verbs propped up by adverbs and extra nouns.

• He was moving very quickly becomes He sprinted.
• She made a decision to investigate becomes She decided to investigate or simply She investigated.

Watch these two clips. The first focuses on replacing adverbs, and the second on avoiding "to be" verbs to achieve conciseness.

2. Use the Active Voice

In the active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action (e.g., "The dog chased the ball"). In the passive voice, the subject receives the action (e.g., "The ball was chased by the dog").

While the passive voice has its uses, the active voice is generally more direct, energetic, and concise.

Let's see this in action.

3. Cut Redundant and Unnecessary Phrases

Writers often add "filler" words and phrases out of habit. These include prepositional phrases that don't add new information, redundant modifiers, and empty introductory phrases.

• Redundant: The building was tall in height. -> The building was tall.
• Wordy Phrase: Due to the fact that it was raining... -> Because it was raining...
• Unnecessary Prepositions: The book on the table in the corner... could often be simplified depending on the context.

This final clip from Brandon McNulty covers cutting prepositional phrases and other "bloated" language.

This image provides a great visual summary of the principles we've just discussed.

Workshop: Time to Edit

Now, let's put it all into practice. The following document contains a list of wordy sentences. Your task is to apply the techniques we've covered to make them more concise.

Once you've tried rewriting the sentences on your own, you can compare your versions with the suggested revisions below.

Conclusion

Excellent work. Today, we took the first essential step in our writing journey. You learned why concise writing is powerful and practiced several key techniques to achieve it: using strong verbs, choosing the active voice, and cutting redundant words and phrases. Think of this not as a set of restrictive rules, but as a way to clear away the clutter so your ideas can shine. This is the foundation upon which all other stylistic elements—including the wit and creativity you're aiming for—are built.

In our next lesson, we will build directly on this foundation. Having learned how to remove unnecessary words, we will focus on making sure the words that remain are as precise and explicit as possible. We'll move from conciseness to clarity, tackling vague language to make your writing sharp and unambiguous.