Terse

There can't be any question that verbosity is not good. No disrespect to Dickens or Joyce, but most of us aren't them. The tide today seems to be shifting toward more expansive writing, but I think I'll go another way.

I have yet to see the comment on someone's writing "put more words in." They may wish the story was carried on, or parts of it expanded on, but not merely "more words."

Hemingway is far more unique and distant from the average than any other writer. We may find clones of all manner of florid writers, but few so terse.

So, in the future I shall try to write stories as screenplays first, to see where dialog and scene and feelings belong, and then as stories, and then ruthlessly remove most adverbs and adjectives. If it is unclear how the person feels or reacts, I will clarify it by the action of the story rather than words.

And we'll see how that goes.