Dear Chip,
Greetings from North Carolina, also known as “the state where that other guy named Mike Peterson is on trial for killing his wife.”
Our new managing editor, John Drescher, said at a staff meeting that he thought almost all stories could be improved by a 10 percent cut in the number of words. So my team (four reporters and an editor) decided to do an exercise next week where we all cut the same story by 10 percent, trying not to sacrifice content, and then compare our cuts.
Ellen Sung
Raleigh News & Observer
(Poynter Online Intern 2001-2002)
What a cool idea, Ellen,
John Drescher’s suggestion confirms that brilliant minds do think alike. In “On Writing,” Stephen King describes a rejection slip he received in 1966 when he was still in high school.
“Not bad but puffy,” the editor wrote. “You need to revise for length.”
The editor provided this formula:
“2nd Draft = 1st draft – 10 %”
Stephen Koch credits King with the “Ten Percent Solution” in “The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction,” my latest favorite writing book.
Another member of the Ten Percent Club is The Oregonian’s Tom Hallman.
“I really believe in being spare,” Hallman says.
“On every story I’ve ever done, I’ve hard-edited and cut no less than 10 or 15 percent of the story,” he told Keith Woods in “Best Newspaper Writing 1997.” “So if it’s a 100-inch story, I always cut out 10 or 15 inches. And that’s before I give it to the editor.”
Wondering how to cut?
Mechanize the process. Use your computer’s word counter to tally up a story’s length. Divide that figure by 10 and your story will be ready, as Koch says, to be “washed and preshrunk in the 10-Per Cent Solution.”
Some likely candidates:
Passive verb constructions. “The mayor is planning” becomes ”The mayor plans,” adding energy, saving a word.
Modifiers. Search for ”ly” to identify adverbs. Replace them with verbs that communicate with power and economy. “She knocked lightly” becomes “She tapped.”
Quotes. Most speech is bloated. Trim the fat, leaving the verbatim message, or paraphrase. You’re the writer, Spencer Klaw, advised his students at Columbia Journalism School. Unless they can say it better than you, don’t quote them.
Ellen Sung agreed to share what she and her N&O colleagues learn from their experience as Ten Percenters.
Perhaps we can all become charter members of the Ten Percent Club.
Here’s my application: The first draft of this column was 626 words long. Using the Ten Percent Solution, I got it down to 455 words.
Become a card-carrying member.
Lose a few words but gain many more readers.
Lose words.
Gain readers.
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