The Lard Factor

I find a good portion of my freelance positions on Craigslist. Usually, individuals in need of affordable writing projects will advertise here. Sometimes companies will do the same, although this is less common. Craigslist is also a breeding ground for people looking to exploit freelance writers with ridiculously low paying jobs. Because these jobs are so hard to come by, there is fierce competition even for the worst of these jobs.

Tonight, while browsing Craigslist I found a company that had posted the following: "Do you shun the idea of 'filler' and 'fluff' in your writing?". The line struck a chord with me. As a writer, I have spent most of my writing life trying to find the absolute easiest way to say something. This oftentimes means distilling a sentence or a paragraph down to the bare essentials, omitting needless words and shortening sentences down from long snakes of language down to an inch worm of meaning.

I had a professor in college who had devised a strategy for doing just this. He called it "the lard factor."

The lard factor works like this: you count how many words are in your original sentence. Then you condense the same meaning down into as few words as possible. Next, you determine what percentage of words were cut: this is your lard factor.

For example, take the following lines: "It was a dark, steamy, night. I could see the steam coming off of my own sweating body."

Then, compare it to the this: "In the dark, steam poured off of my sweating body."

The first line consists of 18 words, while the second is 10 words. 8 words were omitted while the meaning was preserved. This equates to a 44.4% lard factor within the first couple sentences.

It's baffling to me, after having practiced this art for so long, how easy it is to say what you want to in as few words as possible. With a little ingenuity, anyone can do this.

And, ironically, my longest post yet is about brevity. Go figure.