P = Precision

I have trouble with this. I blame my mother’s Italian heritage. We take ten words to explain something others could have done with three. We give the backstory for every answer, regardless of what the actual question involved. Faster than a speeding bullet, our hands fly through the air as we describe yet another event with a combination of story and mime. Tangents are our specialty, you might say.

Writers need to be precise whenever possible. If you can say it in three words, use three words. If you can simplify, do it. No one wants to read the thesaurus written in novel form. Your prose can be descriptive without being purple. I remember reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles years ago (one of the saddest, most depressing books I’ve ever read, by the way), and realizing, after a particularly verbose passage, that Tess had been raped. The prose was so ambiguous and wordy that I almost didn’t grasp the seriousness of the most important turning point in her life.

If your readers have to reread passages to figure out what you’ve just said, then maybe it’s time to say it in simpler fashion.