Make Your Words Worth Their
Weight In Gold
I panned for
gold once as a child. Since I grew up in Alaska, you
might think it would have been a regular activity, but
gold-panning—like visiting Denali State Park or local tourist
trap Santa Claus House—tended to be an activity reserved for
out-of-state relatives who wanted to Experience Alaska.
But one summer day found my parents, my brother, and me panning
for gold.
In the
movies, the rugged prospector, squatting down by a stream, is
just scooping up his first pan of gravel when, suddenly, a glint
catches his eye. Lo and behold, it is a gold nugget the size of a
walnut! Throwing his old felt hat to the ground in jubilation,
the prospector leaps into the air, clicking the heels of his work
boots. Or, depending on plot of the movie, he is devoured by a
grizzly bear.
As I
discovered, the reality of gold panning was somewhat less
profitable, if also less perilous. Here’s how it works:
1.
Squat next
to, or in, a stream. Plan to be there for some time.
2.
Scoop up a
big glob of sediment in your pan, then s-l-o-w-l-y shake it back
and forth, thus washing the sediment away
while—theoretically—allowing the heavier gold to settle in the
bottom of the pan.
3.
Pick out the
big rocks. Add some more water so your glob of sediment stays
sludgy.
4.
Repeat Step
Two.
5.
Repeat Step
Three.
6.
Repeat Steps
Two and Three for a long time.
7.
Finally,
a.
Spy glint of
gold, throw down hat, click heels, etc.; or
b.
Get eaten by
bear.
In my case,
there was a “7c,” which was to become bored during the middle of
Step Two and wander off to pursue more immediately gratifying
activities, such as picking flowers and throwing pebbles at my
brother.
Most would-be
gold panners are like me, too impatient to sift through all the
sludge to find the gold nuggets. This is why most tourists skip
Steps One through Eight and go directly to Step Nine, which is to
drive to the Santa Claus House and purchase a souvenir gold pan,
because no matter how valuable the gold nuggets are, having to
sift through all that junk to find them just isn’t worth the
bother.
In writing,
the valuable nuggets are too often buried in a sludge of
extraneous words. For example, do you want to say, “Marah
believed that it may be a very wise idea for her to focus on only
those things that would most likely assist her in her goal of a
good education”? Please don’t! How about, “Marah decided to
concentrate solely on her education.” Little, if any, of the
meaning is lost, and you’ve cut seventy-five percent of the
sludge. For more guidance, see Strunk and White Rule #13 (www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html#13).
The sad truth
is this: most readers’ interest in your work will not include a
willingness to wade through a morass of superfluous words. If
it’s too confusing, or too boring, or too frustrating, most
readers will close your book and put it back on the shelf. If
that happens, you’ve lost that reader and every person that
reader tells how boring your book is.
At some point
in your writing, sift through each sentence and discard the
sludge. It can be time-consuming, but making the extra effort to
improve the clarity of your writing demonstrates a commitment to
your readers, and your readers will reward you by making a
commitment to you and your work.
