Flash Fiction:
a complete story in one thousand words
or fewer.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

A Machete, Not a Scalpel

A marketing brochure just came across my desk. When you open the brochure's cover, there's a left-hand page (cover two) that contains a diagram and a few quotes, and a right-hand page that contains text. Here's the top of the opening page:
As federal agencies continue to struggle to increase service levels in the face of shrinking budgets, they also find themselves under more intense scrutiny than ever before -- from the public, as well as other departments and executive branches of government. In order to maintain peak levels of productivity and cost-efficiency, while meeting growing demands for transparency, accountability, and performance, they must re-invent the way they operate.

Business intelligence and enterprise integration solutions from Information Builders have empowered many federal government institutions to overcome their greatest challenges and reach their most important goals. By enabling the creation of a single, fully unified technology infrastructure; making complete and timely data readily accessible to employees, regulatory bodies, and constituents; and automating key processes and workflows, Information Builders technologies are helping federal agencies to transform themselves into more efficient, agile, and responsive organizations.

With Information Builders’ solutions, federal agencies can:
  • Increase visibility across the entire organization

  • Improve performance and productivity

  • Reduce operating costs

  • Better manage important programs and initiatives

  • Eliminate fraud, abuse, and waste

  • Share critical information with other agencies

  • Enhance service to and communication with the public

The problem is, there's almost double this amount of text following this, and all of this is supposed to fit on the first page.

Here was my recommendation back to the people creating the text:
Start by eliminating the entire first paragraph; we’re telling them things they already know instead of telling them our value. Then cut fluff and passive voice from the second paragraph to read:

Business intelligence and enterprise integration solutions from Information Builders help federal agencies transform themselves into more efficient, agile, and responsive organizations. They enable the creation of a single, fully unified technology infrastructure; make complete and timely data readily accessible to employees, regulatory bodies, and constituents; and automate key processes and workflows.

Shazam: 139 words just became 51. That, along with some less-intense hacking, the rest of the copy should fit.

This was clearly using a machete instead of a scalpel, but sometimes that's what you need.

Labels:

Friday, August 28, 2009

Crunching with Tony and Grouch

Here are 983 words from Don (Twitter, blog). My only change so far is the f-bomb going to "freak". (It's kind of a family-friendly-ish site, right?)
The next day, Grouch got Tony hired as a temporary doorman to work the door at Club D.E.M. after the girl with the Bettie Page haircut came down with some stomach-related thing. "The things you can do at the touch of a button," Grouch joked.

For the next week, from eleven at night to four in the morning, Tony manned the sensor at the front door with his lenses activated. He assumed Grouch was watching directly, or was at least recording the data somewhere. He assured Tony that it wouldn't take up space anywhere in his brain. Disk space wasn't included in the upgrade package.

Tony couldn't see the point of Bettie Page's job. The setup at the door was simple. All he had to do was listen for the sensors at the door to ping like in those old TV game shows when contestants gave the right answer to "What's the capital of Myanmar?" or buzz when someone gave a wrong answer or no answer to the question, "Are you old enough to be here?" And, when the buzzer did go off, all he had to do was point the underaged offenders to the door. Except the buzzer never went off. Tony knew he'd let some fourteen year-olds in, but as Grouch drilled into him, "The sensors can only read what their ID chips say."

The hardest part of Tony's job was the lack of sleep. He couldn't concentrate at the door enough to study, as he found when he brought his books and left them untouched for the first three days. The nervousness of not knowing exactly why Grouch wanted him there, of struggling with whether he even wanted to know, faded away with the deer-in-headlights state of mind he'd developed getting up close and personal looks at the club's clientele.

At least Maia was there with him. For two nights in a row, she came to the club as soon as it opened to score a corner table with a sack full of handhelds trying to figure out what Grouch's game was.

On a busier than usual Saturday night, Tony took a break because his head hurt mostly, he thought, from being forced to see blue all day between studying and working the door. He ordered himself a shot at the bar. Maia slid in next to him, cheerfully ordering "One for me, too! Just put it on his tab."

"You found something?" Tony said, rubbing his temples.

"Actually, I got nothing. But that's something!"

Tony gave her the What's the Punch Line? look.

"Whatever you're recording in full holo mode is getting saved somewhere. Not to your chip, though because, no offense, but your brain isn't big enough to store a door shift's worth of data. Neither is Grouch's. Which means he's sitting somewhere with something jammed up his port."

Tony beckoned the bartender for a refill. "I'd like to jam something up his port."

Maia shook her head.

"Dammit, he's watching right now isn't he? I didn't think...God, I'm just so tired."

"Don't whine, okay. I got it covered." Maia downed her second shot, looking pleased with herself. "I might not be able to touch his gear, but I can still touch yours. All he's seeing is me bitching about our parents. Your temples? That's me, sorry."

"So, we're back to square one?"

"Yup. He's tapped into you, obviously looking for something he can't get from the cameras, here. I'm thinking that could be all there is to it."

Tony thought twice about a third shot. "Then, maybe we should just leave well enough alone."

"I said that could be. Besides, you wanna be Grouch's bitch forever?" Maia watched her third shot being poured. "You take the path-of-least-resistance to a whole new level, you know that? That's your problem! We crack on Ernie, but at least he didn't just talk about doing it 'his way.'"

Tony turned over his plastic shot glass and let his fist fall on it, crushing it flat. "What's your point, again?"

Maia pounded her fist onto the flattened shot glass. "You always do this--you take a couple of baby steps to something you want, then life throws you a curve and you don't know what to do. So you're willing to get bent over and take it, thinking a way out is just gonna magically appear."

"Why risk making it worse, though?"

"Dammit, what about the principle? You scrape together all that money just to let yourself get turned into a tool. A literal tool! For once, freaking do something, man! Get angry! And if you do make it worse, freak it. Go down swinging. With your middle finger in the air, while you're doing it!"

Tony was too buzzed to be angry. "So, what do we do?"

"What I'm thinking? Scorched earth. I'm brainstorming, here. We fry his tech, or something. We'd need a lot of power--well, unless we get the right gear...."

"Sounds painful," Tony said. "If it's gonna hurt, why not just tell him to freak off and let him do his thing?"

"I thought of that," Maia said. "Who knows what he might be able to do to you. Best to just fry his stuff and be done." She ordered her brother another whiskey. "Just finish out your shift. I've got a couple of ideas. When do you guys go to church, nowadays?"

"Ten-thirty Mass, usually," Tony said.

"Good. Skip it and I'll come by the house then."

"Why the house?"

"It's gotta be there. Don't worry."

Tony tried to protest but Maia put her finger to her lips and held out her phone. "Gotta go." She hit the button. Tony felt his headache subside as the live feed resumed.

"And you can tell 'em I said this," Maia said as she put her middle finger right in Tony's face, he knew, as a message to Grouch.
I don't know these characters (this is the beginning of act three of a short story), and Don told me that this was a fairly rough draft.

Let's cut.

-----
The next day, Grouch got Tony hired as a temporary doorman to work the door at Club D.E.M. after the girl with the Bettie Page haircut came down with some stomach-related thing. "The things you can do at the touch of a button," Grouch joked.
Do I need to say that a doorman was hired "to work the door"? :) It also probably doesn't matter that he's temporary -- that kind of work tends by nature not career-oriented.

There are bits here that I might restructure, but I can see why they'd be the way they were, so I'll defer to Don. Cutting or restructuring too much can change the voice.
The next day, Grouch got Tony hired as a doorman at Club D.E.M. after the girl with the Bettie Page haircut came down with some stomach-related thing. "The things you can do at the touch of a button," Grouch joked.
45 words becomes 40: 11% cut.

-----
For the next week, from eleven at night to four in the morning, Tony manned the sensor at the front door with his lenses activated. He assumed Grouch was watching directly, or was at least recording the data somewhere. He assured Tony that it wouldn't take up space anywhere in his brain. Disk space wasn't included in the upgrade package.
Look at the number of forms of "to be" (primarly "was") and the number of prepositions in this paragraph. Both of those are strong indicators of cuttable material.

Also note that the last paragraph and this one start almost the same way: "The next day,..." and "For the next week,..." I'm going to change the second paragraph to eliminate that.

"eleven at night to four in the morning" could be a voice thing, but it's just not that important. I'd say Tony worked the eleven-to-four shift.

"the sensor at the front door" = "the front door sensor" (Could be "front-door sensor" if you consider "front-door" to be a compound adjective.)

"for the next week" may not matter, but since it lends a sense of time to the paragraph it might be nice to do that another way -- I changed "manned the front door sensor" to "started manning" to give that temporal motion.

The "wasn't" in the disk space sentence shows that we can restructure it by figuring out what's doing the work (or not): The upgrade package didn't include disk space.

I started to re-write this several times, but it might be easier if I try to determine what data we're getting across here first:
* Tony took the job on the 11-to-4 shift.
* The lenses stream data.
* The data's too large to fit in Tony's brain.
* Grouch must be recording it or watching the stream of lens data.
Tony started manning the front door sensor during the eleven-to-four shift. Grouch had assured him that the data streaming from his lenses wouldn't take up space in his brain -- his upgrade package didn't include disk space -- but he assumed that Grouch was watching or recording it somewhere.
49 words from 60: 18% cut.

-----
Tony couldn't see the point of Bettie Page's job. The setup at the door was simple. All he had to do was listen for the sensors at the door to ping like in those old TV game shows when contestants gave the right answer to "What's the capital of Myanmar?" or buzz when someone gave a wrong answer or no answer to the question, "Are you old enough to be here?" And, when the buzzer did go off, all he had to do was point the underaged offenders to the door. Except the buzzer never went off. Tony knew he'd let some fourteen year-olds in, but as Grouch drilled into him, "The sensors can only read what their ID chips say."
"The setup...was simple" "All he had to do was listen" "to be here" "all he had to do was point" -- lots of "to be" forms.

"The setup at the door was simple" isn't really needed, is it? It seems to serve as a contrast to "Except the buzzer never went off." If I can reduce the space between "Tony didn't see the point" and "Except the buzzer never went off", maybe I won't need it.

The stuff around the TV show contestant is funny in its way, but too much. In fact, it detracted from the story for me, because we went from a true answer to a game-show style question to a bad (or no) answer in "real life" without a transition. I knew what he meant, but it was clunky and pulled me out of the story.

"Bettie Page's job" is cute, but for a guy like me who has a hard time remembering names, it's One More Freaking Name. Even if you don't care about guys like me, it's certainly a candidate for cutting.

"gave a wrong answer or no answer" just seems long. I know why it's there: both options are technically possible. But so what? It's such a minor point that you can gloss over it very quickly. Maybe going to its opposite (correctly answer the question) and negating that would help.

Maybe we can combine the "listen" and "point" sentences.

Note the repetitions of "had to". A little clunky, aren't they? Since Tony's actually doing the job, we can show him actually doing his duties instead of talking about what they were. (If you think about it, that's a minor form of "show, don't tell".) That slightly changes things, though, since the description of "pointing the offenders to the door" doesn't really happen, so that has to be a conditional. To streamline the resulting sentences, I used an em dash -- I think it gives a greater sense of hesitation and consternation to the second half of the sentence -- but you could use a comma instead. You could even use a period if you like things choppy.

"underaged" goes without saying for the offenders, so let's not say it.
Tony couldn't see the point. He listened for the door sensors to buzz like in those old TV game shows when someone didn't correctly answer the question, "Are you old enough to be here?" Then he would have pointed the offenders to the door -- except the buzzer never went off. Tony knew he'd let some fourteen year-olds in, but as Grouch drilled into him, "The sensors can only read what their ID chips say."
121 words down to 75: a 38% cut.

-----
The hardest part of Tony's job was the lack of sleep. He couldn't concentrate at the door enough to study, as he found when he brought his books and left them untouched for the first three days. The nervousness of not knowing exactly why Grouch wanted him there, of struggling with whether he even wanted to know, faded away with the deer-in-headlights state of mind he'd developed getting up close and personal looks at the club's clientele.
Only one "was". That's good. But it's the first sentence in the paragraph, which stops the paragraph's momentum cold.

This is one of those times when looking at rhythm can be instructional. "the HARDest PART of TOny's JOB was the LACK of SLEEP" -- if you were writing poetry it might work, but in this context the sentence just sort of galumphs.

"state of mind" isn't vivid, even though "deer-in-the-headlights" is, so it takes the wind out of the metaphor.

I think the point of this paragraph is that (a) Tony is nervous so (b) he can't concentrate so (c) he can't study so (d) he loses sleep (studying after hours, I guess, though that's never stated). Maybe we make those points more directly.

After re-writing this multiple times, I'm wondering if we need the stuff about the club's clientele. Maybe it's important to Don's story somehow, but I think the plastic shot glasses and the 14-year-old clientele characterize the club pretty well. Maybe we can leave this out altogether.
Questions weighed on him at first: why did Grouch want him there? Should he care? His nervousness made it hard to study. After a few days he didn't bring his books anymore, relegating them to home hours clouded with NoDoz and coffee. Eventually, even his anxiety crumbled into bleary-eyed monotony.
With the caveat that Don might need stuff in there that I've taken out, this is 50 words where once there were 77: a 35% cut.

-----
At least Maia was there with him. For two nights in a row, she came to the club as soon as it opened to score a corner table with a sack full of handhelds trying to figure out what Grouch's game was.

On a busier than usual Saturday night, Tony took a break because his head hurt mostly, he thought, from being forced to see blue all day between studying and working the door. He ordered himself a shot at the bar. Maia slid in next to him, cheerfully ordering "One for me, too! Just put it on his tab."
Two things here seem to gain unneeded emphasis. He's only been working there for a short time, but for two nights "in a row" she came to the club. The Saturday night is "busier than usual" (and despite this, Tony is allowed to take a break).

"For two nights" could be just "twice", if it's needed at all.

"with him" is unnecessary. So is "full" in "sack full". Also, where else is she going to come to if not "to the club"? "He ordered himself" is just "He ordered".

"to the club as soon as it opened to score a corner table with a sack full of handhelds" just seems really long. I think it at least needs to be broken up a little bit. (Don could argue that this is the voice: breathless and a little run-on. I would understand that if he were consistent in the story; It's his call). Instead of "as soon as the club opened", why not "early"?

"trying to" could be eliminated if the phrasing were right: She's working on figuring out the game, so make the introduction to the sack full of handhelds a little more active and eliminate "trying to".

The "he thought" in the second paragraph is actually a slight point-of-view (POV) violation. It anticipates the revelation that Maia is causing his headache. Cut it.

Do we need an "even" to talk about Maia coming early? She "was there", which sounds consistent, but only twice did she come early.

I assume "seeing blue all day" has something to do with the sensors, so I'm leaving it in without modification.

If I want to pick out every word I can -- and why shouldn't I? -- "Just" can come out of "Just put it on his tab."
At least Maia was there. Twice she even came early, scoring a corner table, working with a sack of handhelds to figure out Grouch's game.

One Saturday night, as Tony's head throbbed from seeing blue all day, he took a break and ordered a shot at the bar. Maia slid in next to him, cheerfully ordering, "One for me, too! Put it on his tab."
One hundred words becomes sixty-five: a 35% cut.

-----
"You found something?" Tony said, rubbing his temples.

"Actually, I got nothing. But that's something!"

Tony gave her the What's the Punch Line? look.
I'll leave this alone. I think people are naturally good at writing clipped dialogue. Don's not alone in this respect. It's once you start getting into bigger sentence structures and paragraphs that people start adding fat.

It's not that we couldn't trim sentences like these, by the way, just that I don't think it would help the dialogue.

-----
"Whatever you're recording in full holo mode is getting saved somewhere. Not to your chip, though, because, no offense, but your brain isn't big enough to store a door shift's worth of data. Neither is Grouch's. Which means he's sitting somewhere with something jammed up his port."
People work "shifts", so it doesn't have to be "door shift".

"is getting saved somewhere" could be implied by saying that it's getting saved somewhere else.

"you're recording in full holo mode" seems a little long.

"your brain isn't big enough to store" could be a little shorter, but you want the slightly derogatory tone of "your brain isn't big enough". How about "your brain couldn't handle"?

I'll keep the sibilances and some-some repetition of the last sentence.
"The holos you're recording aren't getting saved to your chip. No offense, but your brain couldn't handle a shift's worth of data. Neither could Grouch's. Which means he's sitting somewhere with something jammed up his port."
47 words becomes 36: a 23% cut.

-----
Tony beckoned the bartender for a refill. "I'd like to jam something up his port."

Maia shook her head.

"Dammit, he's watching right now isn't he? I didn't think...God, I'm just so tired."
I'll leave this.

-----
"Don't whine, okay. I got it covered." Maia downed her second shot, looking pleased with herself. "I might not be able to touch his gear, but I can still touch yours. All he's seeing is me bitching about our parents. Your temples? That's me, sorry."
These cuts aren't necessary, but I think they work.

"I got it covered." is a prelude to her telling Tony how she has it covered. You usually don't need preludes. But if we cut it, we should hold off on the beat -- her second shot -- until after she's said something that is being-smug-worthy.

"I might not be able to" is long for "I can't". It changes the tone slightly, like she's drawing out the statement -- which she might be -- but I don't think you need it.
"Don't whine, okay. I can't touch his gear, but I can still touch yours." Maia downed her second shot, looking pleased with herself. "All he's seeing is me bitching about our parents. Your temples? That's me, sorry."
45 words to 37: 18%.

Aside: Does anyone else read this and have an image of Fiona from Burn Notice in his head? I'm just waiting for her to blow something up. :)

-----
"So, we're back to square one?"

"Yup. He's tapped into you, obviously looking for something he can't get from the cameras, here. I'm thinking that could be all there is to it."

Tony thought twice about a third shot. "Then, maybe we should just leave well enough alone."

"I said that could be. Besides, you wanna be Grouch's bitch forever?" Maia watched her third shot being poured. "You take the path-of-least-resistance to a whole new level, you know that? That's your problem! We crack on Ernie, but at least he didn't just talk about doing it 'his way.'"
If it's "obvious" you don't need to say it's obvious unless it wouldn't be obvious to the other speaker. In this case, I think Maia has made it obvious enough.

"here" is unneeded, as far as I can see.

So are "Then" and "just" -- keeping one of them is better than both of them. I'll leave "Then" because it sounds like he's coming to a conclusion.

A character saying "I'm thinking X" is the same as the character saying, with conviction (and this character clearly has conviction, no waffling necessary) just plain "X".

"I said that could be" feels like it needs more punctuation. It could also be cut to "I said 'could'."

"third shot being poured" bugs me just because it's passive. There's a guy doing that action, so have her watch the guy pouring the shot. No cut, but a better sentence.

Note that some people will notice the repetition of "a third shot" and "her third shot". Rephrasing might be in order.

"That's your problem!" isn't really needed -- she's just told him what his problem is.

"We crack on Ernie, but at least he didn't just talk about doing it 'his way.'" I think this means that he wasn't all talk and no action, and if that's what Don means then we can get there more quickly.
"So, we're back to square one?"

"Yup. He's tapped into you, looking for something he can't get from the cameras. That could be all there is to it."

Tony thought twice about a third shot. "Then maybe we should leave well enough alone."

"I said 'could'. Besides, you wanna be Grouch's bitch forever?" Maia watched the bartender pour her third shot. "You take path-of-least-resistance to a whole new level, you know that? We crack on Ernie, but at least he didn't just talk."
98 down to 83: 15%.

-----
Tony turned over his plastic shot glass and let his fist fall on it, crushing it flat. "What's your point, again?"

Maia pounded her fist onto the flattened shot glass. "You always do this--you take a couple of baby steps to something you want, then life throws you a curve and you don't know what to do. So you're willing to get bent over and take it, thinking a way out is just gonna magically appear."
This is one of the reasons I always read a full scene (or story) before I start to cut: If I went paragraph by paragraph, I'd miss interactions between different clusters of words. These two paragraphs have an interplay that we need to keep.

I like the characterization using the plastic shot glass. "Plastic shot glass" characterizes the bar. The "let his fist fall" characterizes Tony -- even when he does something destructive it's small and passive -- and when Maia "pounded" that characterizes her, too. But there's too much "shot glass" "fist" and "flat" and "flattened" here. We should try to cut some of that.

We could say "let his fist crush it" or "let the weight of his fist crush it" to get the sense of passivity. "Let his fist fall, crushing it." Maia doesn't have to pound "her fist onto" it, nor does it have to be a "flattened shot glass".

Some of Maia's words are extraneous. They're not bad, just not needed. If Don feels like adding them back, I wouldn't complain.
Tony turned over his plastic shot glass and let his fist fall, crushing it. "What's your point, again?"

Maia pounded the flattened plastic. "You always do this--take a couple of baby steps, then life throws you a curve and you're lost. So you bend over and take it, thinking a way out is gonna magically appear."
77 words down to 57: 26% cut.

-----
"Why risk making it worse, though?"

"Dammit, what about the principle? You scrape together all that money just to let yourself get turned into a tool. A literal tool! For once, freaking do something, man! Get angry! And if you do make it worse, freak it. Go down swinging. With your middle finger in the air, while you're doing it!"

Tony was too buzzed to be angry. "So, what do we do?"
"Though" isn't really necessary. If you think it is, or that the mood conveyed by it is, you could substitute "But it could get worse" or something similar.

"to let yourself get turned into" is passive -- which might be okay as a way for this character's sister to describe him -- and longish.

"Dammit, what about principle?" could be shortened to "Principle!" Or not. Since I'm focused specifically on cutting, I'll cut it, but as always, it's Don's prerogative to put it back in.

Maia's vigor is displayed in the "dammit" and the following f-bombs, so some of that could be cut.

I'm going to show my bias against exclamation points by removing some. That's just me, though.
"Why risk making it worse?"

"Principle! All that money scraped together and you're just a tool. A literal tool! For once, get angry. Do something. And if you make it worse, freak it. Go down swinging. With your middle finger in the air!"

Tony was too buzzed to be angry. "So, what do we do?"
72 words becomes 55, a 24% cut.

-----
"What I'm thinking? Scorched earth. I'm brainstorming, here. We fry his tech, or something. We'd need a lot of power--well, unless we get the right gear...."

"Sounds painful," Tony said. "If it's gonna hurt, why not just tell him to freak off and let him do his thing?"

"I thought of that," Maia said. "Who knows what he might be able to do to you. Best to just fry his stuff and be done." She ordered her brother another whiskey. "Just finish out your shift. I've got a couple of ideas. When do you guys go to church, nowadays?"

"Ten-thirty Mass, usually," Tony said.

"Good. Skip it and I'll come by the house then."

"Why the house?"

"It's gotta be there. Don't worry."
I'm running out of time, and this bursty dialogue is already mostly trim. A point here or there...
"What I'm thinking? Scorched earth. I'm brainstorming, here. We fry his tech. We'd need a lot of power--well, unless we get the right gear...."

"Sounds painful," Tony said. "Why not just tell him to freak off and let him do his thing?"

"I thought of that," Maia said. "Who knows what he might be able to do to you. Best to just fry his stuff and be done." She ordered her brother another whiskey. "Finish out your shift. I've got a couple of ideas. When do you guys go to church?"

"Ten-thirty, usually," Tony said.

"Good. Skip it and I'll come by the house."

"Why the house?"

"It's gotta be there. Don't worry."
124 to 114: 8%.

-----
Tony tried to protest but Maia put her finger to her lips and held out her phone. "Gotta go." She hit the button. Tony felt his headache subside as the live feed resumed.

"And you can tell 'em I said this," Maia said as she put her middle finger right in Tony's face, he knew, as a message to Grouch.
I think "as the live feed resumed" isn't quite within the character's POV. Instead, I'd prefer to link the hitting the button with the headache subsiding in the same sentence, reminding the reader about Maia's tampering with the feed. It also saves five words. :)

This might be going overboard, but I'm trying to cut, right? The "he knew" stands out because anything in third-person limited POV is automatically something that the viewpoint character knows. Let's kill that.
Tony tried to protest, but Maia put her finger to her lips and held out her phone. "Gotta go." She hit the button, and Tony's headache instantly subsided.

"And you can tell 'em I said this," Maia said as she put her middle finger right in Tony's face: a message to Grouch.
60 words becomes 52, a 13% cut.

-----

So here's the final version. In all, we have 770 words now, down from 983. Total cut: 213 words, 22% -- not incredible, but not bad.
The next day, Grouch got Tony hired as a doorman at Club D.E.M. after the girl with the Bettie Page haircut came down with some stomach-related thing. "The things you can do at the touch of a button," Grouch joked.

Tony started manning the front door sensor during the eleven-to-four shift. Grouch had assured him that the data streaming from his lenses wouldn't take up space in his brain -- his upgrade package didn't include disk space -- but he assumed that Grouch was watching or recording it somewhere.

Tony couldn't see the point. He listened for the door sensors to buzz like in those old TV game shows when someone didn't correctly answer the question, "Are you old enough to be here?" Then he would have pointed the offenders to the door -- except the buzzer never went off. Tony knew he'd let some fourteen year-olds in, but as Grouch drilled into him, "The sensors can only read what their ID chips say."

Questions weighed on him at first: why did Grouch want him there? Should he care? His nervousness made it hard to study. After a few days he didn't bring his books anymore, relegating them to home hours clouded with NoDoz and coffee. Eventually, even his anxiety crumbled into bleary-eyed monotony.

At least Maia was there. Twice she even came early, scoring a corner table, working with a sack of handhelds to figure out Grouch's game.

One Saturday night, as Tony's head throbbed from seeing blue all day, he took a break and ordered a shot at the bar. Maia slid in next to him, cheerfully ordering, "One for me, too! Put it on his tab."

"You found something?" Tony said, rubbing his temples.

"Actually, I got nothing. But that's something!"

Tony gave her the What's the Punch Line? look.

"The holos you're recording aren't getting saved to your chip. No offense, but your brain couldn't handle a shift's worth of data. Neither could Grouch's. Which means he's sitting somewhere with something jammed up his port."

Tony beckoned the bartender for a refill. "I'd like to jam something up his port."

Maia shook her head.

"Dammit, he's watching right now isn't he? I didn't think...God, I'm just so tired."

"Don't whine, okay. I can't touch his gear, but I can still touch yours." Maia downed her second shot, looking pleased with herself. "All he's seeing is me bitching about our parents. Your temples? That's me, sorry."

"So, we're back to square one?"

"Yup. He's tapped into you, looking for something he can't get from the cameras. That could be all there is to it."

Tony thought twice about a third shot. "Then maybe we should leave well enough alone."

"I said 'could'. Besides, you wanna be Grouch's bitch forever?" Maia watched the bartender pour her third shot. "You take path-of-least-resistance to a whole new level, you know that? We crack on Ernie, but at least he didn't just talk."

Tony turned over his plastic shot glass and let his fist fall, crushing it. "What's your point, again?"

Maia pounded the flattened plastic. "You always do this--take a couple of baby steps, then life throws you a curve and you're lost. So you bend over and take it, thinking a way out is gonna magically appear."

"Why risk making it worse?"

"Principle! All that money scraped together and you're just a tool. A literal tool! For once, get angry. Do something. And if you make it worse, freak it. Go down swinging. With your middle finger in the air!"

Tony was too buzzed to be angry. "So, what do we do?"

"What I'm thinking? Scorched earth. I'm brainstorming, here. We fry his tech. We'd need a lot of power--well, unless we get the right gear...."

"Sounds painful," Tony said. "Why not just tell him to freak off and let him do his thing?"

"I thought of that," Maia said. "Who knows what he might be able to do to you. Best to just fry his stuff and be done." She ordered her brother another whiskey. "Finish out your shift. I've got a couple of ideas. When do you guys go to church?"

"Ten-thirty, usually," Tony said.

"Good. Skip it and I'll come by the house."

"Why the house?"

"It's gotta be there. Don't worry."

Tony tried to protest, but Maia put her finger to her lips and held out her phone. "Gotta go." She hit the button, and Tony's headache instantly subsided.

"And you can tell 'em I said this," Maia said as she put her middle finger right in Tony's face: a message to Grouch.
So there it is. What do you think?

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Thursday, May 14, 2009

Marketing Copy: Condensing An Intro Into An Ad

A task at my day job seemed perfectly suited to creating a new blog post: create a newsletter ad for a white paper download. The white paper in question is “Leveraging Integration to Weather the Economic Storm”, which you can find here (registration required).

The specs for the advertisement called for 75 or fewer words. I figured that I should distill the paper’s message into 75 words by copying the introduction, which is itself a distillation of the paper. Here it is:

Even the toughest of times comes with a silver lining. Economic slowdowns and other business challenges force us to refocus our efforts on our core business practices. They shift our attention to the things we tend to ignore during periods of growth – like improving efficiency, cutting costs, and enhancing strategies.

But, fear and pessimism are not the answer. Planning and decision-making based on reason, rather than dread and apprehension, are the keys to weathering the storm.

Remember, tough times don’t last forever. A little advance planning now could pay off when the economy begins its inevitable upswing. That’s where integration comes in. While corporations are implementing rigid cost-cutting measures across the board, many are actually increasing their spending on integration projects and related technologies. And, with good reason.

This white paper highlights four primary ways to use integration to make your business better during a down economy. You’ll discover how, with the right integration plan and supporting software in place, your company can increase efficiency, minimize expenses, and streamline and accelerate core processes. You’ll also learn about iWay Software, and what makes it the ideal suite of solutions for any integration project. And, as a bonus, we’ll tell you about two innovative ways to leverage your results to put yourself in the best possible position when the expansion begins.

[Yes, I hate the construction “Conjunction, blah blah blah” at the beginning of a sentence, too. The editorial staff has promised me that they’ll eventually fix that.]

So I’m starting with 219 words, over 1400 characters. I need to cut this thing by 66%.

I could start by rewriting, but that’s tough. Instead, I decided to get rid of all of the fat.
Even the toughest of times comes with a silver lining. Economic slowdowns and other business challenges force us to refocus our efforts on our core business practices. They shift our attention to the things we tend to ignore during periods of growth – like improving efficiency, cutting costs, and enhancing strategies.

Why “and other business challenges”? This is a paper about the economy, not about other business challenges.

“Force us to refocus our efforts on” is seven words where “make us focus on” will do.

Combining sentences can be effective, as long as they don’t get unwieldy. In this case, instead of starting a new sentence with “They shift our attention”, I can use “, shifting our attention”. It’s only one word, but it sets a style that I can use later.

Prepositional phrases trigger my cutting instinct: “periods of growth” are “growth periods”.
Even the toughest of times comes with a silver lining. Economic slowdowns make us refocus on core business practices, shifting our attention to the things we ignore during growth periods: improving efficiency, cutting costs, and enhancing strategies.

37 words from 50: a 26% cut.
But, fear and pessimism are not the answer. Planning and decision-making based on reason, rather than dread and apprehension, are the keys to weathering the storm.

I want to axe this whole sentence just because it begins with But-comma. But I won’t. I’ll axe it because I’m pretty sure that I won’t get the chance to keep this, and it really only adds to the mood without adding any specific information. Away it goes.
Remember, tough times don’t last forever. A little advance planning now could pay off when the economy begins its inevitable upswing. That’s where integration comes in. While corporations are implementing rigid cost-cutting measures across the board, many are actually increasing their spending on integration projects and related technologies. And, with good reason.

I’m looking for the contrast between “Tough times” and “But there’s more to think about” that I had in the last version, so I’ll change “Remember” to “But”.

In the second sentence, “now” is redundant (when else are you going to do advance planning?), while “begins its inevitable upswing” just takes too long.

The next sentence is trying to strike a balance in the original: even though people are spending less, they’re careful to fund integration (“and related technologies” – I should have cut them, but didn’t notice it when I was iterating through this process. Don’t worry, though, they don’t really matter, so they’ll be cut soon). I can change the tone slightly by making it sound like some companies are rigid in their cost-cutting efforts (which is true) while others are increasing their integration spend (also true).
But tough times don’t last forever. A little advance planning could pay off when the economy swings upwards. While some corporations implement rigid cost-cutting measures, others are increasing their spending on integration projects and related technologies. And with good reason.

That’s 42 words, down from 50 in this paragraph plus the entire 26 words from the previous one: 45% cut.
This white paper highlights four primary ways to use integration to make your business better during a down economy. You’ll discover how, with the right integration plan and supporting software in place, your company can increase efficiency, minimize expenses, and streamline and accelerate core processes. You’ll also learn about iWay Software, and what makes it the ideal suite of solutions for any integration project. And, as a bonus, we’ll tell you about two innovative ways to leverage your results to put yourself in the best possible position when the expansion begins.

This is the selling point, so I don’t want to cut too heavily. Just trim the fat first. “primary” goes away; “to use integration to make” becomes “integration can make”; “You’ll discover how, with the right integration plan and supporting software in place, your company can” becomes “You’ll discover how integration can help your company”; “we’ll tell you about” becomes “we’ll discuss”; “to put yourself in the best possible position when” becomes “to position yourself well for when”. (That last one isn’t a perfect map, but I think it’s close enough.)
This white paper highlights four ways integration can make your business better during a down economy. You’ll discover how integration can help your company increase efficiency, minimize expenses, and streamline and accelerate core processes. You’ll also learn about iWay Software, and what makes it the ideal suite of solutions for any integration project. As a bonus, we’ll discuss two innovative ways to use your current results to position yourself well for when the expansion begins.

91 words down to 75: an 18% cut.

Okay, that’s all nice, but we still need major surgery. We’re still at just over 150 words, which means we need to cut this in half. I’m running out of time on the post, so here is a rush-through of the next two iterations:

* “Even the toughest of times comes with a silver lining” is trying too hard to get the metaphor in there. Cut it to “Even tough times bring some good results.”

* “Economic slowdowns make us refocus on core business practices, shifting our attention to the things we ignore during growth periods” really means “Economic slowdowns shift our attention to core processes we ignore during good times”.

* The “advance planning” section is too much. What’s the point? That you need a plan. So come out and say that: “But tough times don’t last forever. A little advance planning could pay off when the economy swings upwards” becomes “But you also need a plan for when the tough times end.”

* Stop talking about “some corporations”, which is wordy and distant, and talk about what you need to do, person-who-should-download-my-white-paper. Something like “Instead of implementing across-the-board cost-cutting measures, you may need to shift spending to integration projects.” But is that the point? Not really: the point is that you need to download my white paper to see why you should focus on these four specific integration projects. The latter implies the former. So cut that whole line.

* For the last paragraph, eliminate the repetition (now glaring because of its proximity) of improving efficiency, cutting costs, and enhancing strategies. What are we really doing in the white paper? Well, the four projects improve efficiencies and cut costs, while the forward-looking stuff is strategic. So say that: “This white paper shows four ways integration can make your business more efficient and less costly, and discusses two innovative ways to use these results for strategic advantage in the coming expansion.”

* Finally, what about iWay Software branding? People who download the paper expect some iWay discussion in the paper, and the logo is already on the download page, so it’s really redundant and may even put people off just a little bit. What’s important is that we prove that the things we’re talking about aren’t pipe dreams, that they’re things people have actually done. If we show that our customers have done the work, prospects will naturally think that we can do it for them. “Better still, you’ll see case studies that prove it can be done.”

Here’s the final:
Even tough times have some good results. They force us to focus on improving efficiency, cutting costs, and enhancing strategies.

But we also need plans for when tough times end. This white paper shows four ways integration can make your business more efficient and less costly, and discusses two innovative ways to use these results for strategic advantage in the coming expansion. Better still, you’ll see case studies that prove it can be done.

74 words, and right on deadline.

I wouldn’t use exactly this for the introductory copy, but going through the iterations here made me wish we’d done more cutting on the paper itself. But the paper’s not bad. If integration is interesting to you, go download it. If not, then I hope you got something out of the discussion of the cutting process.

What do you think?

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Saturday, February 28, 2009

The 10% Solution

Boy, I really haven't posted here for a long time. I even have one story that belongs up here -- Mercedes M. Yardley's "Ray the Vampire", which was over 1000 words when she submitted it -- but I haven't posted it yet.

I will, maybe, if I'm really lucky. In the meantime, check out "The 10% Solution", which is a concise statement of basic things to look for while cutting. I agree that they'll give you about 10%, without giving you the 25% cut that I try to hit, but it's a good list nonetheless.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Trimming a Slow Spot

In the FlashForum there's a section for registered users called "Critique My Flash". In it, an author provided a story about a Messenger of Death that contained the following passage:
His job at the midpoint had been about as thankless as the administrative one he’d had on Earth. On Earth, he had to direct hordes of people to counters at the Health Card office; at the midpoint, he had to split up new souls into three lines: the Good, the Not So Good, and the Bad. The Good went to Heaven, the Bad to Hell, and the rest stayed at the midpoint, where they made his life hell with their incessant questions. (“When will I go to Heaven?” “Is it my time yet?” “I won’t go Down There will I?”)
The problem with this section is that it's descriptive without really helping us get to the main plot. When I said that it could use some trimming, the author gave me permission to cut it and post the results here. This section is therefore written as if I'm speaking to him rather than to you, Dear Reader, because I'm too lazy to change the original text (and I'd mess it up if I tried).

Anyway, off we go...


Original:
His job at the midpoint had been about as thankless as the administrative one he’d had on Earth.
We need to know we're talking about his job, and we need to know that you're comparing his Earth job with his midpoint job. But do we really need to know that his Earth job was administrative? I'll say "yes" because you're trying to associate what he's doing with tedium. But we definitely don't need to have the word "administrative" (telling) and the description of the job (showing) from the next sentence.

I also think that the "had been about as thankless" is too passive. First, there's no action; second, you've passed up an opportunity to characterize him, by showing the job through his eyes.

Maybe something like this (change the characterization to suit):
He hated his midpoint job just slightly less then his Earth job.
12 words from 18, or a 33% cut.


Original:
On Earth, he had to direct hordes of people to counters at the Health Card office;
"had to direct" and the following prepositional phrase string triggered my cutting instinct. At times like this, I break up sentences into their data points to see if I can reassemble them more compactly and possibly delete some. It doesn't always work -- your aesthetic sense should be your guide, not word count -- but it's a good exercise regardless. In no particular order, you tell us: the job was on Earth, there were lots of people, he was directing them, he worked at a health card office.

First, kill "had to". It's a job, so of course he has to. :) Next, find different, stronger words. Here, if they're "hordes of people", how about "herding" them? That leaves us with this:
On Earth, he herded people to counters at the Health Card office.
12 words from 16, or 25%.


Original:
at the midpoint, he had to split up new souls into three lines: the Good, the Not So Good, and the Bad. The Good went to Heaven, the Bad to Hell, and the rest stayed at the midpoint, where they made his life hell with their incessant questions. (“When will I go to Heaven?” “Is it my time yet?” “I won’t go Down There will I?”)
This seemed to tell me something once, and then again: "First, let me define the divisions, to wit: good, not-so-good, and bad; now let me walk through these divisions, showing that the good go to heaven, the bad go to hell,..." But you don't really need to define the groups before showing where they go, because the names of the groups are already well-enough understood. Define the groups by where they go.

Cut:
at the midpoint, he guided souls into three lines: the Good went to Heaven, the Bad went to Hell, and the Not So Good stayed at the midpoint, making his life hell with their incessant questions. (“When will I go to Heaven?” “Is it my time yet?” “I won’t go Down There will I?”)
54 words from 66, 18%.


That gets us here:
He hated his midpoint job just slightly less then his Earth job. On Earth, he herded people to counters at the Health Card office. At the midpoint, he guided souls into three lines: the Good went to Heaven, the Bad went to Hell, and the Not So Good stayed at the midpoint, making his life hell with their incessant questions. (“When will I go to Heaven?” “Is it my time yet?” “I won’t go Down There will I?”)
This is an iterative process, so I'd take a last crack at the first two sentences, which sound a little clunky to me, to get this:
He hated his midpoint job just slightly less then his old job on Earth, where he had herded people to counters at the Health Card office. At the midpoint, he guided souls into three lines: the Good went to Heaven, the Bad went to Hell, and the Not So Good stayed at the midpoint, making his life hell with their incessant questions. (“When will I go to Heaven?” “Is it my time yet?” “I won’t go Down There will I?”)
This version is 80 words, a 20% cut from the conveniently sized original 100 words, and, more importantly, it streamlines the text while adding characterization and without changing the voice.

What do you think?

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

A Nip and Tuck for Bruce McAllister's "Game"

Many thanks to Bruce McAllister for being a really easy person to work with on the edits for "Game".

The story he sent me was around 1050 words long. After we went through a brief round of editorial changes -- points of clarity, use of the serial comma, all that kind of stuff -- we hadn't saved any words. That's when we started to cut. If you look through my archives, You'll see that I usually target 25-30% and I often get 15% or so. We only needed about 50 words (5%), so it's almost too easy of a goal. :)

Since the story is available in full online, I won't give the entire story here, as I usually do; instead, I'll just give you the parts that I actually cut, and say why.

Original:
This is a game called Is Love Possible? It’s a virtual game—real cutting-edge interface software—that (l) draws on your life, hopes, and fears; (2) may or may not, my therapist tells me, have any therapeutic benefits; and (3) with a discount costs over two grand through my therapist, and to run it needs another three in hardware from Circuit City, Best Buy, wherever.
The locution "this is a that" can almost always be trimmed at least a tiny bit. In this case, it goes from "this is a game called" to "this game is called": one word. Similarly, "tells me" is the same as "says".

Looking at prepositions, as usual, leads to some easy savings that don't change the tone much: "with a discount [costs over two grand] through my therapist" condenses to "with my therapist's discount". Slight reshuffling of the sentence is in order (sorry, but the pun's already there and I'm leaving it).

"to run it needs another three in hardware" just seemed a little long. Since the entire paragraph is about the game, and the verb phrase just prior ("costs over two grand") has an implied "it" or "the game" as its subject, we can use the same implied "it" as the subject and people should know what we mean. That leads to "needs three more in hardware".

Result:
This game is called Is Love Possible? It’s a virtual game—real cutting-edge interface software—that (l) draws on your life, hopes, and fears; (2) may or may not, my therapist says, have any therapeutic benefits; and (3) costs over two grand with my therapist’s discount, and needs three more in hardware from Circuit City, Best Buy, wherever.
65 words goes to 58: We've cut 11% of the first paragraph.

In paragraph three (level one of the game), the narrator's father says
“I love you, but this can’t go on any longer, Dorothy. Don’t you know how love works?”
"Can't go on any longer" is the same as "can't go on", an easy two-word cut. No information loss, no significant style change.

The next paragraph (level two) contains one redundant phrase. Here it is in context:
...I’ve taken a stunning 30-year-old girlfriend and don’t intend to bite her. This upsets the Brothers, my kids. They’re very worried. When Great-Granddaddy flips, what’s going to happen to them? “Don’t you love us?” they ask.
Clearly they're very worried, because of what comes before (they're upset) and the question that comes after (what's going to happen to them?). Cut "They're very worried" with no information loss and no style change at all in the surrounding sentences.

One of the challenges with any cutting exercise is avoiding style changes. Bruce has a strong style here, a little breathless (note the lack of commas in places like "In the third level I've been given a planet to rule", which, in that case, is followed by a fragment), tightly focused, highly introspective. I don't want to overcut, and since I don't have to cut a lot in this case, I could skip level three. By the same token, of course, pacing is one reason to cut as much as is reasonable, but I thought level three could stand.

Moving to the fourth level of the game: it's one of the biggest paragraphs of the story, so I thought I should try harder here. I liked the tone, though, so I had to be really careful. Here's the original:
In the fourth level I’m myself and I’ve got a mission, an important one, the kind you’d see in a thriller. I’ll need a team to pull it off, so I Google my own name. When I’ve made a list of the other fifty Bradford Mackeys I can find—among them, a guy in Maine who makes beautiful rustic furniture out of twisted juniper, a guy in Wales who raises prize-winning pigeons that carry his (our) name, an RV salesman, a bush pilot in Alaska, a Calgary news anchor, and the only police officer who’s ever successfully sued a felon—I contact them and ask them if they want to join me in my assignment, which is to rescue a little boy from the Romanian orphanage that holds the record for training the most serial killers. About a third say “yes.” One of them wants to come, and I tell him he can’t. He’s a horse trainer, has broken his back, and is going to be in a wheelchair for months. He starts crying, streaming video, and I relent. When we finally leave for Bucharest—from twelve different cities on four continents—there are fifteen of us. Interestingly, four have red hair, two are Jewish, four Catholic, two Buddhist, one a defrocked Baptist minister and one a science fiction writer. We’re going to make a great team, but can we save the boy? “Do we have enough love in us to pull it off?” the pigeon-raiser asks for the tenth time.
Isn't that fun? Hack it up anyway.

There's an "appositive" (I think that's what it's called) in the first sentence: an explanatory phrase set off by commas. "an important one" both slows down the pace of the text and might be cut because "an important mission" is the same as "a mission, an important one". Five words becomes three.

Then look at "When I’ve made a list of the other fifty Bradford Mackeys I can find—among them, a guy in Maine..." The context of the story makes it clear that he's making a list, and the action that he takes afterwards ("I contact them") makes it clear that he's not doing anything else, so mentioning the list isn't needed. Then I also don't need "among them" because I'm just going through examples of the names. Result: "When I’ve found fifty other Bradford Mackeys—there’s a guy in Maine..." 20 words becomes 12: a 40% cut for that section.

In the list of names, I took out the final "and", before "the only police officer who's ever successfully sued a felon". You could argue that technically it should be there, but Bruce was creating a partial list, and I think cutting it off without an "and" makes it feel like it's trailing away rather than attempting to be complete. Your mileage may vary.

"I contact them and ask them if..." doesn't need the second "them".

"About a third say yes" can go to "A third say yes". Nobody expects precision in a statement like that anyway, right?

"is going to be in a wheelchair" is the same as "will be in a wheelchair" (two words cut), and "we're going to make a great team" is the same as "we'll make a great team" (two more).

This is a great example of a paragraph in which a lot of little changes make a big difference. 251 words (a quarter of the story!) was cut to 227, which is about 10% -- and half of our overall 50-word goal.

The fifth level gave us two more words: The original said "Peter Pan and the Big Bad Wolf are both on acid", which is essentially the same as "Peter Pan and the Big Bad Wolf are on acid." And maybe there are Disney purists out there who will argue with me, but I thought the "Fantasyland II snack stand" could become the "Fantasyland snack stand".

The sixth level is the one that cracked me up the most. I didn't cut it, but not for that reason.

In the seventh level I made lots of little cuts. Here's the original:
In the seventh level I’ve fallen in love with an Apache girl who, in order to become a woman, is dancing for three mind-altering days on a steer hide, the little scars on her arms recounting the years of her life. But I’m also in love, or was—I remember this now—with a French girl in Montreal, where I lived for years to avoid an old war. And before that (it’s coming back now) I was engaged to, and married, and lived happily with—until my death at 46—a deli owner’s daughter in Yonkers. And as I watch the Apache girl dancing (I’m 18 and she’s 16, so it’s okay—the reservation police look the other way) I see myself living another two grueling centuries during which I manage to fall for sixty-six women, one of them not even from Earth. “Is it possible,” says the shaman, who’s taken a break from the ceremony to have a Pepsi, “to love, really love, someone who isn’t your own species?”
"in order to become a woman" is just "to become a woman" -- "in order to" is a really common waste phrase that you can almost always shorten to "to".

"But I'm also in love" doesn't really need "also", because he's remembering what's happened before as if it's now, and there's more than one other love, and it's seemingly impossible. (If it were necessary to show that there were a love triangle, I would have kept "also".)

"where I lived for years to avoid a war" already has the sense of bygone time in it, so although one might argue with the point -- the two sentences aren't technically identical in meaning -- I deleted "old" where the original had "avoid an old war".

"And as I watch" went to "As I watch". The "and" is supposed to link the thoughts of older days to the current image of the Apache girl, but I think they're already linked sufficiently.

"during which I manage to fall for" went to "during which I fall for". "manage to" is strictly a junk phrase here, which could be used for tone but is eminently cuttable.

"the shaman, who's taken a break from the ceremony to have a Pepsi" doesn't need "from the ceremony". That's the only thing going on in the scene, so you don't need to point it out.

The ending contains a few cuts, too, but only in one sentence: “That’s not what I asked. I asked you whether you beat it.” That can be trimmed to "I didn't ask that" (five words becomes four) and "I asked whether you beat it" (deleting the first "you").

That's it! A nip here and a tuck there, and we've gone from fifty words over the mark to three words under.

Thanks again to Bruce for letting me suggest modifications to his work, and then for accepting all of them on the first reading. As I said at the outset, it was a pleasure to work with him.

Comments are welcome, as always.

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Thursday, December 27, 2007

Back up!

The site has gone live, and I intend to get back to some of the cutting work I had done in the past. If you click on the archive links, you'll be brought back to my personal Web site, where I used to host the blog. Please always remember to come back to Flash Fiction Online to get the content you're looking for.

Regards,
Jake

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