Short And To The Point

From WabiSabi:

I absolutely agree about this, that all my favorite books are short (with perhaps some notable exceptions such as TheTimelessWayOfBuilding). Perhaps the writers out there can shed some light on why ShortAndToThePoint is a good writing pattern. -- NicholasJacobs

Short, concise writing is largely a matter of discipline. It forces the writer to steer clear of a number of bad habits, including: relying on irrelevant facts, hiding behind inflated vocabulary, repeating oneself, and repeating everybody else. In the short term, these habits serve to hide the writer's intellect and spirit from public scrutiny. In the long terms, these habits weaken the writer's intellect and spirit, so it must be hidden.

Unfortunately, concise writing may only get you so far, since there are some topics that require familiarity with fact-driven knowledge domains. A politician may take inspiration from LaoTzu?, but will still have to read Congressional committee reports from time to time. A software engineer may worship ChristopherAlexander, but still might have a library full of thick language reference books. We may take wisdom from the mountain, but we probably have to live in the valley.

(quote moved to TimeToMakeItShort)

short exchangePointAndMark(void)

That looks suspiciously like a line from the source code for Mince (Mince Is Not Complete Emacs).

I've recently started writing a bi-monthly column for ComputerWord?, in New Zealand, on XP. I'm restricted to around 800 words per column (although I regularly blow this by up to 25%). This is my first professional writing gig. I find myself constantly refactoring what I have written.

I'll write a sentence, so that I know what I want to say, then I'll erase bits of it to make it more concise, and to make it more clearly represent my opinions.

I have also, recently, been presenting papers at conferences. I have found that, although some of my papers extend to around 30 pages, the discipline that I have developed writing short columns has been carried over into my papers. I've received quite a lot of feedback from these papers, and it's all very positive.

However, concise use of language can create unreadable drivel too. I look at some of the papers on software engineering emerging from some universities (especially European universities for some reason), and I don't understand even the words. This is strange to me, as I'm a graduate in Software Engineering, and have managed to maintain my academic interests. I should be able to read these papers, I can't, therefore something is wrong. I suggest that the problem is that, in an attempt at being concise, the authors have invented/adapted a language that is used by a small group of researchers. The benefit of this is rapid communication within that group, the cost is impenetrability by people outside that group.

--BryanDollery

One danger about learning to write and rewrite is that, once you've done it enough, you can develop habits that inhibit your understanding and pleasure of the craft. At this point in my life I've probably written hundreds of articles for newspapers and magazines, and although I can churn out a story like clockwork, there have been times when I feel as if the creativity has largely absent from the process. Tightness and concision are wonderful, but it seems that they can inhibit experimentation as well. I'm trying to solve it by writing a lot of fiction on the side, so as to stretch my creative muscles more. We'll see how well it works. -- francis