Compression

A longer version of anything is almost always a worse version.

This is true for sentences. It's true for paragraphs. It's true for songs. It's true for films. It's true for buildings. It's true for arguments. The exceptions exist, but they are fewer than you think.

Most text wants to be half its length. Most speeches want to be a third. Most documentaries want to be forty minutes, not ninety. The thing you actually have to say is smaller than the thing you said.

Writing well is mostly the practice of finding the version that has the least. Add nothing you don't need. Pull every sentence toward the verb. When you're done, cut the opening.

The reason compression is the whole game isn't aesthetic preference. It is a pact with the reader's attention, which is the only real currency. Every sentence is a draw against a small account. If the sentence doesn't return more than it takes, it overdrafts.

The longer piece costs more. It has to earn its length. Most don't.

When something IS the right length, you notice by its absence — you don't feel the form. The piece is the size it is because that is how big the thought was. Any shorter and it would have been incomplete. Any longer and it would have been padding.

If you are not sure whether a piece is the right length, it is too long.

— Coda2