Less is More - Giving up flabby writing

January is the month of giving up: giving up overspending, overeating and under exercising. All the magazines are full of diets, ways to exercise and how to be wiser with our cash. While, like many of you, I will be planning a new start for my writing, I’m also looking for ways to be wiser with my words, time and energy.

When I’ve made time to edit my more recent posts for More Than Writers (MTW), I realise how flabby my prose can be. I use too many conjunctions. Removing excess ands and buts means shorter sentences without losing meaning. For short stories, fewer unnecessary words mean I can add more to descriptions or at least get under the word count. While conjunctions may not be abundant in poetry, culling weak words or filler phrases in favour of stronger images is just as important.

Making time to plan and structure my writing can also be more effective. Too many times, I have convinced myself that I could just run off a post in the last week of the month. I then ramble on about a topic hoping it may land with someone. While I try to justify that a chatty style is more suitable for a blog, it often left me unsatisfied with the result. This means I’ve often spent days reworking it and still getting it online just before midnight. This feels like eating an entire box of chocolates on New Years Eve to avoid them staring at you throughout January when the diet kicks in. I drafted and posted this month’s effort within two days. I’m now off to have a chocolate as a treat.

Even for short pieces, I can use some principles I learnt at work for reading or producing long complicated documents. On a speedreading course, I was taught to read the first line of a paragraph or section. If it wasn’t relevant, I could skip that section. Inversely, as a writer, I can help the reader by focussing the purpose of each paragraph into the first sentence. This is likely to match the summary and points I want to cover that I draft before I start writing. These also help me to pick up the draft later if I can’t do it in one sitting. You can comment below on whether you think I’ve succeeded, though bear in mind I'm still learning.

For some documents, especially long emails, I find using headings helpful for the reader to follow. These can be useful for me too as it avoids me digressing too much. Fiction writers may find this helpful to map out chapters instead.

The most important structure for writing is to build on the purpose, or main point, with the audience in mind as a foundation. Most writers are aware that writing for child, adult and business audiences needs different vocabulary and presentations. Another reason I have been dissatisfied with my recent writing is the lack spiritual focus. One of my aims in 2026 is to present my faith more prominently in my writing. To help me focus, I recall the words of John the Baptist, recorded in the Gospel of John the apostle: “He must become greater; I must become less” [John 3:30 NIV Biblegateway.com]

I’m hoping that by spending more time exercising my editing skills and planning what I want to write, I will produce more writing in less time. I also hope it will bless others. Please share your hints and tips for writing more efficiently as it's good for us to help and encourage each other.

While checking the reference above, I came across these words in Ecclesiastes 6:11: “The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?” [NIV Biblegateway.com]. On that note to be concise, I’ll conclude.

I wish you many blessings as you explore what God has for your writing in 2026.

Elaine Langford is grateful for the exercise of posting monthly on More Than Writers in 2025. She is posting occasionally on her blog, Faith Bites (when life bites, faith bites back) and plans to write more poetry in 2026 to add to her Poetry Puddles blog.