Write Succinctly

Write clean, active sentences. Crisp, snappy sentences attract and hold your readers’ attention.

Because composing concise content is such an important practice for writing for the Web, an entire chapter is devoted to deleting unnecessary content. See Chapter 7, “Writing Succinctly,” for more about how to make sure your content is tight and spare.

Cut Word Count by Half

For your first draft, don’t concern yourself with how you write. Just jot down all your thoughts. After you have a draft that you feel is complete, then edit, ruthlessly. Smash, slash, and trash as many words as you can. Put even your favorite words and phrases on the cutting block. Some authors say that you should cut the word count by half, and then cut it in half again. That is a challenge!