Once you know what you want to say—and you actually see what you’re trying to write about—then the rest is simple:
Don’t decorate it.
Don’t “write pretty.”
Don’t try to be impressive.
Don’t pour wine over the sentence to make it glisten.
Just say it.
And say it plain.
“Don’t write too well; it’s the absolute worst way to write.”
— Anatole France
Language should be like breathing: sometimes deep, sometimes shallow, but it has to breathe.
Sentences that don’t breathe suffocate the text. And then the reader falls asleep.
If you choose words or phrases because they sound literary, throw them out.
Then you’re back in the mirror admiring yourself.
Writing is easy. Cutting is hard.
That’s where you go from writing to being an author. The craft begins.
By the way, you’ve heard the phrase “kill your darlings”, I’m sure.
It’s not about killing off characters in the book. It’s about killing sentences and turns of phrase you don’t want to lose. But lose them you shall.
Let’s start off with some examples
“The sky was carmine red in a dramatic spectrum of colors. It was like a fire over the city.”
This means: It was an evening with reddish light in the sky.
You can write: The sky was blood-red. The heat lay heavy over the city.
“She felt the pain of an emptiness in her chest as if she were filled with the unbearable presence of sorrow.”
This means: She missed him.
But “missed” doesn’t say enough. What is she actually feeling? Not abstract “sorrow.” What does it do to her, right now?
You can write: She wanted him to be there, but he wasn’t. And it hurt.
It isn’t pretty, but it hits harder.
The real thing is always simpler than we think. Not because it’s less complex, but because it doesn’t need to prove anything.
Don’t make it less complex. Just make it less decorated.
Precision is not minimalism. Precision is respect for what you’re trying to say.
If you need ten words, use ten.
If you need one, use one.
You’re not supposed to be restrained.
You’re supposed to be true.
If characters say what they feel, they’re not feeling it
They’re narrating it. Let the reader infer.
Bad: “I’m so angry right now,” he said, his voice shaking with rage. “You betrayed me, and it hurts more than you’ll ever know. I feel like my trust has been shattered into a million pieces.”
Cut: He picked up the coffee mug (her mug) and hurled it against the wall. The ceramic shattered. He didn’t speak until he’d stepped over the shards, his shoes crunching the fragments into the floor.
“You used my key.”
Broken trust inferred.
Description is a scalpel, not a paint roller.
If a detail doesn’t reveal character, advance the plot, or deepen the mood, it’s noise. Cut it.
Remove redundancy (over-rendering the atmosphere). Remove decoration. Remove pauses. Remove “local color”.
Bad: The woods lay silent, a black mouth swallowing sound. Pines stood jagged and skeletal against a sky bruised with dusk, their branches reaching upward as though clawing for the last veins of light. Spanish moss hung in long, gray shrouds that swayed in the still air, heavy with damp. Drops fell slow to the earth, each bead glinting like a tear suspended in its fall before breaking the mud with a soft patter. The rhythm drummed through her skull as if the forest itself possessed a pulse.
The Good Cut: The woods swallowed sound. Pines clawed at the last light. Beads dropped like tears. She counted them like a heartbeat.
See how the first example is sensory overload while you’re immediately hooked by the Good Cut?
If your character is “interesting,” you’ve failed.
Interesting is for characters who have no stakes.
Give them a need.
Not a quirk.
Not a backstory!
A need.
Bad: Marcus was on leave from the force after “the incident,” and now lived alone with his jazz, his scar, and his quotations. He drank at dawn, stared out at the city, and carried himself like a man in a trailer for his own life.
Good: Marcus hadn’t slept well in days, not since his witness died under his protection. The whiskey bottle was empty. The messages on his phone weren’t—and every one of them was a different way of saying prove you’re not a failure.
The bad invite curiosity, but they don’t demand action. Nothing has to happen next. You could end the paragraph and Marcus could keep being Vibes McNoir indefinitely.
Endings: No apologies, no explanations.
Do not give me a platitude wrapup!
Bad ending: And so, as the sun set on their tumultuous journey, they realized that love, in all its complex and multifaceted glory, was the only thing that truly mattered.
Good ending: She took his hand. The scars matched.
Bad ending: At last, he understood that forgiveness wasn’t something you received from others, but something you chose to give yourself, and with that realization he finally found peace.
Good ending: He deleted her number. Then he retyped it from memory. His hands didn’t shake until the last digit.
Bad ending: In the end, they learned that grief is simply love with nowhere to go, and that by accepting loss, they could begin again.
Good ending: She set the second plate on the table anyway. When the soup cooled, she ate his portion too.
The following things are NOT ALLOWED:
Sentimental moralizing
When the ending turns into a Hallmark-ish lesson instead of an event…
She wiped her tears and smiled, because she finally understood that the heart can break and still keep beating with hope.
He looked around the room and felt grateful, knowing that the greatest gift in life is the people who stand by you.
As the sun rose, she understood that every setback is just a setup for a comeback, and that tomorrow would be brighter.
They forgave each other completely, because they knew that holding on to anger only hurts the one who carries it.
And so the town healed, reminded that compassion is what makes us human, and that kindness always comes back around.
Didactic wrap-up
When the story starts teaching, like it’s clearing its throat to deliver The Point…
And that’s when he understood that honesty is the foundation of every healthy relationship, and without it, love can’t survive.
So remember: if you don’t communicate your needs, you can’t expect anyone to meet them.
In the end, their conflict proved an important lesson—never judge someone before you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.
What she learned that day is something we all should learn: kindness costs nothing, but it changes everything.
Platitude ending
When it lands on a familiar, pre-chewed truth. A summary instead of an ending…
Hope always finds a way.
Time heals all wounds.
The darkest nights always lead to the brightest mornings.
Sometimes you have to let go to move forward.
Forgiveness set him free.
Family is what you make it.
Life is a journey, not a destination.
The past is the past, and tomorrow is a new day.
Sappy or Treacly
The blunt craft-crit words for “too sweet to feel true.”
As the first snow fell, they laughed like children, and everything felt possible again.
He kissed her forehead, and in that kiss every wound they’d ever carried quietly disappeared.
The stars seemed brighter that night, as if the universe itself was celebrating their love.
She smiled through her tears, because somehow she just knew it was all going to be okay.
They stood in the doorway of their new home, hands intertwined, ready for the beautiful future they deserved.
Coda-as-thesis
Where the ending becomes an argument statement…
And in that moment, she understood that true freedom isn’t the absence of fear, but the courage to live despite it.
And so, the town learned that hate can never defeat love, and that compassion is the strongest force of all.
Looking out at the horizon, she understood that life’s greatest journeys aren’t measured in miles, but in the ways we change along the way.
Take-home lessons
Take a paragraph you love. Cut it in half.
Did it lose its soul? Good. You were clinging to decoration.
Did it find its soul? Better. You’ve just learned to write.
Find a sentence from a writer you admire. Rewrite it in your own words.
Now rewrite it worse. (Yes, worse.)
Now rewrite it so it’s only yours.
Congratulations. You’ve just learned voice.
Read your work aloud. After every sentence, ask: So what?
If you can’t answer, cut it.
If the answer is “it sounds nice,” cut it.
If the answer is “the reader needs to know this,” prove it.
For every character, ask:
What do they need? (Not want. Need.)
What happens if they don’t get it?
If the answer is “nothing,” burn them. They’re dead weight.
Write a scene without adverbs (quickly, sadly, angrily).
Adverbs are lazy verbs. If your action isn’t strong enough to show how, fix the action.
Write a scene using only one sense (sight, sound, touch, etc.).
Now rewrite it using a different sense.
Now combine them—but cut 30%.
Congratulations. You’ve just learned precision.
Exceptions
When the language itself is the point.
Sometimes you’re not writing about something.
You’re writing in something.
Rhythm, sound, friction, play—the language itself is the material.
Then the sentence can be lavish, crooked, sharp, biting, even inaccessible.
But: it still has to be alive, and this is advanced craft.
When you’re hiding something on purpose.
Characters can lie. The author can lie to the reader. They can mislead, withhold, lead the reader down the wrong path. But the lie has to be constructed so it holds up afterward. When the truth is revealed, the reader should be able to look back and think: Of course.
When you’re Shakespeare or Hamsun
When Shakespeare wrote the scene where Macbeth sees the blood on his hands and realizes he can’t wash himself clean, he wrote “multitudinous seas incarnadine.” (to dye the endless seas flesh-red).
Near the end of Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, the narrator writes a play. He knows it’s bad, but he forces himself to write. Then he goes to the theater, and breaks down, in the middle of the street. Jeg knækker min Blyant over mellem mine Tænder, springer op, river mit Manuskript itu, river hvert Blad itu, kaster min Hat på Gaden og tramper på den. Jeg er fortabt! (“I snap my pencil between my teeth, jump up, tear my manuscript to pieces, tear every page to pieces, throw my hat into the street and trample it. I am lost!”) he whispers. A policeman stands there and watches.
Even in translation, Hamsun’s breakdown cracks the page open. But in Norwegian, it’s a scream. The words don’t just describe a collapse—they perform it.
This isn’t poetic decoration.
It’s a breakdown.
When a sentence carries an experience that blows past ordinary language, it’s allowed to expand. Not as ornament, but as consequence. Then it’s not just allowed, but inevitable.
But be careful.
If you use big words when nothing big has happened, it’s the text that collapses—not the protagonist.
Thanks for reading. If you liked it, leave a comment!
Amazing article. I was faced with a lot of these challenges when writing SB. Other insights just fell in naturally, given the kind of themes that made me write the story in the first place. I'm telling you, man: Western writers should watch anime or read manga. Classic and modern literature in both the West and Eastern Europe, fiction and non-fiction, can really help build a writer's style. But a lot of its heart was voided - became cynical over these last generations. Japanese culture is in a bad way, but somehow anime emerges as the pure voice of its heart. For the sake of fun, tears and exaltation of our best virtues, it pays to absorb how they do things. Merging these things can produce true narrative magic, making people feel things deeply again. That was my wager.
I think every indie author (particularly those I review!) should read this article once a week for as long as they plan to be accomplished writers.
💜