Cut a third: the editing pass our students use most
Take any draft, set a word count one third lower, and cut until you hit it without losing a fact. What to cut first, in order.
Owen Hale
5 min read
Nearly every first draft is a third too long. The extra words are rarely wrong; they are warm-up sentences, repeated context and hedges.
Cut in this order: the first paragraph if it only sets the scene, any sentence that repeats the one before it, qualifiers like quite and somewhat, and the closing summary if the piece is short.
Then read it aloud. If a fact went missing, put it back in one sentence.
The next cohort of Writing that gets read starts October 20
Forty seats, a group of six, line edits on every draft. Applications take five minutes and most students expense it.
Live cohort courses in writing and speaking for people who do it at work. Small groups, line edits, six weeks at a time.
Taught live from Chicago, Austin, Portland and Seattle
Lyceum