Cluttered writing

Cluttered writing is like a garden full of weeds. The weeds disrupt the enjoyment of the viewer. Words and phrases that distract your reader from understanding your message are like weeds. They can also be annoying.

For example, this is a paragraph about my toddler’s hospitalisation (written many years ago):

What I didn’t initially realise was that I’d have to sleep in the same cot as my son! Granted it was a largish cot and I am not a largish person, but . . . still neither of us was used to even being in the same room at night, let alone the same bed.

Now I look at that and get frustrated by its awkwardness. The repetition of the messy word “largish” also annoys my editor’s eye. Here’s my rewrite:

At first I didn’t realise that, though the hospital required parents of sick toddlers to stay overnight, they didn’t provide separate beds. My son and I had to share his cot. We fit, but we weren’t comfortable.

Now that’s quite a different paragraph. The rewritten paragraph is smoother and clearer. And I think it is more elegant. However, at least two of our Japan Harvest editors would have kept the word “largish” but reworded the rest quite differently.

Writing and editing require an intuitive feel for language. These skills are more art than science, as our Japan Harvest team demonstrated above. There are some black and white grammar and punctuation rules that we should all follow. But no formula for writing exists, which makes crafting phrases difficult and sometimes time-consuming. It’s good to take time to reduce clutter in your writing.

For example:

• Instead of “he directed his aim of the garden hose towards the car”, write “he aimed the garden hose at the car”.
• Instead of “we got everyone together for the purpose of discussing our agenda for the annual conference”, write “we met to discuss the annual conference agenda”.
• Instead of “the very small insect came to rest on the quite large, purple-coloured pulpit”, write “the tiny insect landed on the large, purple pulpit”.

Look out for “weeds” in your writing. With an economy of words, you’ll keep your audience engaged and say more.