• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Writers' Treasure

Effective writing advice for aspiring writers

  • About
  • Contact
  • Services
    • Editing and proofreading services
    • Critiquing services
    • Create a website services
  • Creative Writing 101
    • Opening Chapters
  • Writing Tips
You are here: Home / Magnetic Writing / How to write tight sentences

By Guest Author

How to write tight sentences

This is a guest article by Drusilla Richards. If you want to submit a guest article of your own be sure to read the guest article guidelines.

Many bloggers and writers today have trouble writing tight sentences. So, what really is a tight sentence? It’s a sentence(s) that is clear, concise, and written in a manner that makes every word count.

So, if I’m going on and on giving “background information” such as where, what, why, who, and you know all that stuff, before I get to the point, then clearly — my sentences are not “tight”… similar to this sentence. Yikes!

Loose sentences cause a number of problems for the readers.

First of all, readers fail to understand the real topic of discussion for a long period of time. The author takes so long to get to the point, that meaning is lost within the details. A reader might have to re-read the piece just to look for the main point.

Secondly, loose sentences make a writing piece boring. Readers are yawning, stretching, and daydreaming before they get to the main idea.

Here are a few tips on what you should be doing to avoid “loose sentences” and make your sentences look as fit and “tight” as they can be.

1) Eliminate unnecessary articles

Articles such as “an” “a” or “the” are excessively used in loose sentences. Here is an example:

  • Loose: The best part about the party was that the home-owners, who were a wealthy lot, invited the guests to their swimming pool where the water was intentionally kept warm.
  • Tight: Everyone enjoyed the swimming pool the most, which had warm water.

2) Eliminate unnecessary words

Stacking your sentences with unnecessary words, repetitions, and useless details contribute to sentence verbosity. Try to cut down as many “obvious” words as possible.

Most of the time, a loose sentence can be cut down at least 50%. The writer may believe that each of the details included are necessary when actually they aren’t. Here is an example:

  • Loose: Nikola Tesla shocked an assembled audience, who were all really impressed, at the conference held at DoomsGate by operating a six-foot radio-controlled electric boat at the conference.
  • Tight: Nikola Tesla surprised the audience at the DoomsGate Conference by operating a radio-controlled electric boat.

Notice the amount of unnecessary details and repetitions in the loose sentence. It all had to be hacked down to make concise, yet complete, tight sentence.

3) Get rid of the passives

To add a little verbosity or complexity to a sentence, writers often choose to make passive constructions. Passive constructions are effective when you are trying to sound formal and “verbosity” isn’t a concern.

For example academic prose, political speeches, and poetry commonly have loose sentences and rhetorical constructions for effect. News, magazine, or web articles and books, however, require clarity to keep the average reader hooked. For this reason, editors reject verbosity and terribly loose sentences in contemporary writing.

To eliminate your passive voice and convert it to active, you need to make sure that the subject does the action. Not the other way around (the subjected is acted upon by the verb).

The following are examples of passive and active voice constructions from yourdictionary. Note how passive voice always adds two or more extra words. Passive voice can also be a little confusing because the subject isn’t fully understood until the end of the sentence.

  • We are going to watch a movie tonight. (active)
    A movie is going to be watched by us tonight. (passive)
  • Mom read the novel in one day. (active)
    The novel was read by Mom in one day. (passive)
  • She faxed her application for a new job. (active)
    The application for a new job was faxed by her. (passive)
  • No one responded to my sales ad. (active)
    My sales ad was not responded to by anyone. (passive)
  • I’d need dissertation assistance (active)
    Dissertation assistance would be needed by me (passive)

4) Avoid imprecise words

Writing tight sentences also means that you are being specific. In doing so, you need to avoid vague words such as “things”, “stuff”, and “whatever”.

Example:

  • Loose: I have a feeling Mom went through my things just to find whatever stuff she had been looking for. (unclear, confusing, and loose)
  • Tight: I get the feeling Mom went through my drawers and closet to look for her missing earrings. (clear, concise, and tight)

5) Some more tips on tight sentences:

  • Remove sentences that don’t add meaning to the main idea. Some sentences are far off the topic. This is just “clutter”.
  • Try out various ways you can write your sentences eliminating unnecessary words without obscuring the meaning or missing out important details. Do this exercise until you are satisfied that the sentences is as short as possible.
  • Avoid using unnecessary adverbs. For example, “Jane shouted out loudly” can be written as, “Jane shouted out”. Loudly was an unnecessary adverb (obviously, a shout has to be loud!)
  • Avoid using too many “weak verbs”: is, are, were. Use more definitive verbs that specify the action.
  • Keep practicing. Writing tight takes practice!

Drusilla Richards works at Dissertation Arena as a media manager. She’s also a blog enthusiasts with a core specialty in topics like design, monetization, etc. Join her on Google+.

Liked this post? Write a comment or two, and check out Treasure Trove: the Writers’ Treasure Newsletter to be updated with new content.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Print
  • Pocket
  • Email

Further Reading:

  1. The most confusing grammar mistakes, explained
  2. Writing Tip: Use Vivid Description
  3. The Need to Say More with Less – Concise Writing Tips
  4. 100 Writing Mistakes to Avoid: A Review
  5. Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Creative Writing

Filed Under: Magnetic Writing

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. chaitali says

    September 9, 2015 at 10:34 AM

    Good insight about writing tight sentences. However, I would also like to observe that short sentences are not tight sentences by default. While short sentences work very well in tightening pace and tension for the reader, there’s a beauty and charm in languid and long sentences too if they are well crafted.

    Reply
    • Darlene says

      January 26, 2016 at 8:59 AM

      Chaitali…I agree with you about the beauty and charm in well crafted longer sentences. It’s difficult though to determine which images to keep or cut, particularly in those that have extended metaphors. Any suggestions?

      Reply
  2. Arif says

    January 7, 2016 at 5:46 PM

    Great article. I feel my writing is quite academic, I would like to add creativity and humor in it. How can I do that?

    Reply
    • kamal says

      January 27, 2016 at 12:23 PM

      I don’t know how to write the tight sentence but, now I have some idea to make simple sentence. I really want to create writing someone help me, please. Thank you.

      Reply
    • zz says

      May 7, 2016 at 7:41 PM

      by becoming a creative and funny person yourself.

      Reply
  3. colin topley says

    February 22, 2016 at 11:53 AM

    Very helpful advice, I’ve long wondered what ‘tight’ means in this context.

    Reply
  4. Mitchell Torok says

    May 26, 2016 at 11:12 PM

    However, if you tell stories in person that people like, and you know they do, isn’t it good to have your own personality involved in the sentences…in your own way, whether concise, or Texan, or country or happy and full of humor?

    I’ve found that sudden mistakes or wrong words, laughingly, kinda add color to the story telling…does anybody listening do that?
    any care to comment? I could be all wrong! I write CDS and books about my 50 years in country music….

    Reply
  5. Hosting Deutschland says

    August 21, 2016 at 5:23 PM

    Don’t worry about writing tight during the first draft.  Writing tight takes practice and should be done in the revision process.  Writing tight doesn’t mean always writing shorter sentences.  Clarity always comes first. 

    Reply
  6. Myra says

    January 12, 2018 at 8:58 PM

    There is the extreme of tight writing which becomes boring. It is like leaving spices out of spice cake.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Teach kids how to start a newspaper: learning to write news copy (part 2) says:
    February 11, 2017 at 12:31 AM

    […] https://www.writerstreasure.com/how-to-write-tight-sentences/ […]

    Reply
  2. Editing for Conciseness – Research & Beyond says:
    September 4, 2020 at 10:12 AM

    […] alook at this article. Recognize anything in there? Address it in your […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Treasure Trove – the Writers’ Treasure Newsletter

Subscribe for free and get all future articles + exclusive content delivered straight to your email inbox.

Popular articles

  • Common Mistakes Made by Creative Writers
  • How to Master Clarity in Writing
  • Why Hunting for Plots is Worthless
  • Writing Tip: Experiment with Free-writing
  • 1 Year Later: How I Improved My Writing
  • Pen and Paper vs. Computer: Which Do You Use?
  • Web writing 101: how to write effectively for web readers
  • Blog topics

    • Academic Writing
    • Creative Writing Tips
      • Fiction Writing
      • Poetry Writing
    • Editing and Proof Reading
    • Magnetic Writing
    • Reviews
    • Site News
    • Sponsored Articles
    • Technical Writing
    • Web Writing

    Recent articles

    • How to deal with burnout as a freelance writer
    • Six ways the digital age has transformed the freelancing world
    • Three benefits of becoming a full-time freelance writer
    • How to market yourself as a freelance writer
    • How to survive as a writer in the digital age

    About Idrees Patel

    Idrees Patel is a Bachelor of Management Studies graduate, and is located in India. His goal for Writers’ Treasure to make it a resource which provides in-depth and effective writing advice for writers.

    Learn more about him & this blog →

    Sign up for Treasure Trove

    Email updates

    Receive all articles straight to your email inbox.


    Footer

    Sign up for Treasure Trove

    Write for us

    Do you want to write for Writers' Treasure? I accept guest articles for potential publication, but I will only publish the best of the best, the ones that are extremely high quality. You receive a link back to your website and exposure on a growing writing community. Sounds like a deal? Read the guest article guidelines »

    Topics

    • Academic Writing
    • Creative Writing Tips
    • Editing and Proof Reading
    • Fiction Writing
    • Magnetic Writing
    • Poetry Writing
    • Reviews
    • Site News
    • Sponsored Articles
    • Technical Writing
    • Web Writing

    Copyright © 2023 Writers' Treasure - All Rights Reserved.

    • About
    • Contact
    • Services
    • Archives
    • Creative Writing 101
    • Writing Compelling Opening Chapters
    • Writing Tips
    • Free Updates
    • Privacy Policy