Short is good

I watched TheOdd1sOut's How to Find Inspiration¹ and remembered the most important lesson I learned from my high school English teacher:

Short is good. Short is hard.

The teacher² didn't exactly put it like that. But he harped on something nobody else did: writing concisely.

Every week we would read a work of American literature. And every Friday we'd turn in a one-pager encapsulating our knowledge of the book. I was an odd duck for how much I enjoyed the game: no playing with margins or font sizes. I had to cram an entire book into one page, double-spaced, with 1" margins, a title line, and a byline.

I remember spending Thursday nights honing my text, usually down to around 500 words. We would get a slight bonus for conveying more with fewer words.

That's surprisingly difficult for teenagers conditioned to churn out a specific word count. TheOdd1sOut commiserates:

I feel like the American school system has brainwashed kids into thinking that the best way to express ideas is through the form of a five paragraph essay.

And most schools require essays to have a minimum word count! So we are now training the next generation into purposely writing long-winded and wordy thoughts that could've been shortened down a sentence!

I've found success on YouTube through my writing style. Like the LockPickingLawyer, I value my audience's time.

I spend more time editing my scripts than writing them. Whittling at extraneous drivel so the video contains maximum relevance and minimal filler³.

From TheOdd1sOut:

The first piece of advice that I can give that will immediately improve your scripts is:

Getting to the point.

Indeed.