After four years in journalism, editing dozens of stories and working with talented fellow writers, I have come to an unfortunate, harsh conclusion many writers need to face: Your words are not as important as you think they are. Sometimes.
“Consistency. Clarity. Accuracy. Brevity.” These are the guiding principles of Associated Press style, the writing standards and rules for journalism and more. Though I have developed a love/hate relationship with AP style (RIP parentheses, abbreviations and the Oxford comma), its principles exist for a reason. They are not arbitrary obstacles between writers and good sentences, but reminders that a sentence has a job to do.
At its core, journalism is functional writing. Headlines make statements, ledes catch readers’ attention and the rest earns its space by telling a story. Though that architecture may be unromantic, it makes those words useful to readers.
I learned this gradually. When I began writing for my high school newspaper, “The Sidekick,” watching my carefully composed sentences massacred under my adviser’s fingers in minutes was painful. Surely the reader needed that description, that toiled-over transition or that clever turn of phrase. Oftentimes, the reader needed the next fact. When I became an editor, I found people frustrated as I cut paragraphs they spent hours writing. I understood their frustration, especially when criticism means seeing less of your work published, but also why those cuts were necessary — learning to accept that is part of becoming a better writer.
There is a particular vanity in assuming because a sentence was difficult to write, it must be worth reading. Effort does not entitle a paragraph, or even a few words, to space. Neither does elegance or flowery writing — a beautiful sentence that delays the point can still be a bad sentence, and a plain one can deliver exactly what it needs to.
This is not me arguing for stripping journalism of personality. As a former opinion editor, I would be beside myself not to defend voice in writing. Rhythm, humor and anger are what elevate a good column to a great one. I would be extremely hypocritical to demand otherwise, considering my own writing history that anyone could tear to shreds, including, probably, this article.
But there is a difference between having a voice and putting it before the story. Personality should serve the argument, not create entire paragraphs that exist solely because the writer thinks they sound nice.
Word counts are not cruel restrictions invented by advisers, editors and other equally malicious dictators to stifle creativity. They force writers to decide what matters. If you have 600 words for an argument or 500 words for a gamer, you must be able to determine which words earn their place. A journalist who needs 1,000 words to report the result of a golf game, barring the players beating each other to death with clubs or any other extraordinary circumstances, is a bad journalist — or one that needs practice.
Of course, brevity is not permission to butcher context. Cutting the facts that make a story accurate and important is a disservice to the people journalism should give voices to. Efficiency is not making sure every story is as short as possible, but making every word necessary. As writers, that is something we should strive for anyway: to be so confident in our words to know all of them are necessary.
Journalists owe discipline to the people whose lives fill our pages. Turning someone’s grief, victories and struggles into text and sharing it is an intimate responsibility. Their experiences and truth deserve space before our egos.
Readers do not owe us their time or attention either; another sentence is not guaranteed. Good writers can communicate a story and ideas clearly and efficiently while being considerate of a reader’s time.
Your words matter. Just not all of them.