There is no limit to what might be written. The limits come from the space the words must fit into. The poke controls the pig, only so much will fit. Aspirations must adapt to the space available. It seems stifling. In another way, it’s liberating. It forces us to be concise and in the process write more clearly - perhaps more beautifully.
My first struggle with shoe-horning large things into
small containers came from my design work at the Educational Research Council. A large part of my job was massaging reams of copy, photos and artwork into books with a predetermined number of pages. It was mechanical, tedious, and no fun, though there was some creative satisfaction in getting the pig
to fit the poke. That was step one.
Step two was arranging text and visuals into pleasing double-page spreads. I considered step two the most important part of the work, but I couldn’t get to it before the playing field of step one was set. I worked with editors from the various curriculum departments.
We would measure the length of gally proofs against the combined length the book pages allotted. This determined how much space was left for photos and art. When there wasn’t enough space left for photos and art, the editors returned to their writers with the sad news of how many lines needed to be cut.
The writers did not receive this news well.
“What? No! No! Never”! “My manuscript is perfect as is. Nothing can be cut. Impossible”!
One lady writer took all the lines she was forced to cut from her text and reinserted them into very, very long captions. This was quickly discovered, the necessary cuts made, and the work moved on to final layouts.
All these writers came from academia. They were experts in their fields of knowledge. They knew how proper academic writing was done. The idea that they must write to fit, as well as to write to tell, turned their rulebook upside down. It seemed shockingly wrong.
I sympathized with their point-of-view. Yet only so many peppers will fit into a peck.
Academy imposes virtually no limit on length. Publishing imposes modest limits, but only enough to make sure the writing doesn’t overflow the book. Advertising writing imposes extreme restraints. That’s because advertising space is small & costly, and also because most of those reading the ad will barely be paying attention. You must get to the point, right now.
Your main point must be the personal benefit that might be gained by reading the ad. Your words must fit into the ad-space purchased. There is no squirming out of it, you must say
it fast and clear, with the fewest words possible.
These severe limitations focus the mind. Those who work at this long enough develop ideas about communications not much considered outside the world of advertising. It’s fast, frantic, work. Every day brings deadlines that will not budge.
It’s a bit like a battlefield.
I once heard a writer refer those on the outside as, civilians.
I learned a new term from my work in advertising - wordsmith. When a writer has pared his ad copy to, really, honestly, the fewest words he can, and there’s still a line and a half too much to fit, the wordsmith is called in. Wordsmiths are specialist writers especially skilled at trimming, pinching and pounding too many words into exactly the right amount of words. It’s a craft almost exclusive to advertising
The container limits content.
It also forces careful thought about what truly needs to be said. Serious editorial engineering is essential in advertising, it’s also a good technique for all other sorts of writing, and what-to-do questions. If the pig don’t fit the poke, it might mean you shouldn’t be putting the pig in a poke, anyway. When I hit a snag writing it’s usually because I’ve been trying to force secondary ideas, into my main theme. Once I get my mind focused on my topic and cut out the unimportant stuff, the writing is easy.
Einstein famously said, “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler”.
Sounds good, but reducing the fog of complexity to the simplicity of clear thought isn’t easy to do. You must first separate the anecdotal from the dispositive, then condense what matters and abandon what doesn’t.
There is an advertising assumption that applies: If your
idea won’t fit a postcard, billboard, or a thirty-second TV ad, you probably don’t have an idea.
Go back to your desk, sort through your jumble of words, if you can’t find a precise controlling idea in your words, throw your words away and start over.
Most serious writing would not fit on a postcard. That’s not the point. The point is that without a controlling concept writing of any length can easily ramble away in all directions never quite getting anywhere at all. Blah, blah, blah should be eliminated even when there’s room for it.
Oscar Wilde said, “The secret of being a bore is to tell all you know”. Voltaire might have said it earlier. Doesn’t matter, it’s worth repeating. Most pig & poke troubles can be avoided by doing as Hemingway did. Hemingway’s habit was to write for two hours, then spend the next two hours scratching out superfluous words.
“If you don’t talk too much
you won’t get into trouble,
but if you talk too much,
your troubles will be double”.
- From a 40’s country song
by Tex Williams