Conciser is Nicer
Clutter swarms us like the dirt around Pig-Pen from Peanuts—in our house, our social media feed, our calendars, our data, and the things we read and write.
Minimalism is a useful antidote to digital clutter. Often aimed at “stuff,” minimalism applies writing too. Removing clutter from prose isn’t a new idea. The Elements of Style, the granddaddy of writing books (endnote 1), was first published in 1918. It’s the forefather of minimalist writing. My favorite rule from Strunk & White is “omit needless words.”
The Minimalists pull The Elements of Style into the digital era. 11 Ways to Write Better includes modern Strunk&Whiteisms: treating text messages like prose, the virtue of daily blogging, pacing in digital space.
Roy Peter Clark puts it nicely,
In the world of writing books, unless it’s a reference, the conciser the nicer.
Why Strunk & White still matters (or matter) (or both), Roy Peter Clark
Concise doesn’t mean short. How to remember what you read by Shane Parrish is 5,000 words. Lincoln, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Herbert Donald, weighs in at 720 pages. They’re both magically concise! On the other hand, Seth Godin’s last week of posts is 167 words on average.
I think William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White would approve of The Minimalists, Parrish, Clark, Godin, and the Elements of Digital Style they teach.
ENDNOTES
1. “Dave Barry (humorist), Sharon Olds (poet), and Adam Gopnik (critic) testify as to how they found the advice in Strunk & White formative, and at certain moments in their lives, informative.” - Why Strunk & White still matters (or matter) (or both), Roy Peter Clark.
2. Elements of Style" All-TIME 100 Nonfiction Books. Time, Inc.
2. Essentialism, by Greg McKeown.
3. The Minimalists Blog, by Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus
