Think short

If you're like most newspaper writers, you face increasing demands to squeeze more information into less space. Often, this means going back and cutting your story or, worse, having someone else cut it for you just so it fits the page.

Given this reality, it makes sense to write shorter stories so that others can't find flab in your work. You must invest more effort, but you're more likely to produce a lively, tightly written story.

Understand, this is not a plea to write only 12-inch stories. I simply suggest that rather than ask yourself "How much space can I have?" you ask "How little space can I use?" Instead of 60 inches, can you write 40? Or 14 rather than 20? Not for the sake of shortness itself, but that you learn to make every word work hard.

The key to doing so is not cutting, but selecting.

Dumping your notebook on the screen and then slashing it to fit produces stories that look like they've been through a blender. But by selecting only the best material before you write, you stand a better chance of producing a story with impact whose every sentence sings.
That means you have two jobs: choosing a focus and writing tightly.

CHOOSING A FOCUS

Focus begins not at the keyboard, but at the idea stage. This is where you target your reporting on specific, concrete ideas rather than vague notions that you hope will produce a tale.

Rather than reporting on poverty and health care, for example, you can focus on the working poor on the west side who have no bus service and can't afford a cab to reach the low-income clinic on the south side.

Even more concretely: Why not show one low-income west side family's struggle to obtain health care at that clinic? Their experience will likely illustrate everything you want to tell your readers on both poverty and health care, and will make the story more understandable, immediate and real. It will also save you needless reporting.

Based on what you've learned, negotiate a length with your editor and design your story to fit.

When it comes times to write, decide what you do and don't need from your notes. Here are some strategies:

Ask some simple focusing questions: What is the story's dominant meaning? State it in a single sentence. What's your point? What should the headline say? What should the budget line say? Perhaps most effective of all: How would I tell this to my mother?

Try Don Fry's strategy: List the most important things, then cut the list in half and organize what remains.

Or ask: What happened? What caused it to happen? What's likely to happen next?

Ask yourself what your readers need to know about the story. Ask their questions, and mark your notes for the material that answers them, in order.

Devise a written plan, if only in code or single words and phrases, so that you know where you're going before you write. Mark your notes for the elements that match your plan.
And choose an ending, so you (and your readers) have a sense of destination and know when to quit.

WRITING TIGHTLY

Now, with your outline or marked-up notes at hand, create a draft. And keep a few things in mind:

Don't waste time clearing your throat. Go straight to your main point, and use your strongest material to take your readers there. Use only scenes or anecdotes that move the story along, ignoring the rest of your notebook (or, if you simply must see it in writing, go back and cut it later).

Don't use quotes just to have them in your story. Target the ones that work, that convey information with more impact than you can deliver by paraphrasing.

As best you can, keep to one idea per sentence. That makes them more understandable. But also vary your sentence length and complexity so you don't sound like a first-grade reading text.

And put your best material at the end of the sentence or paragraph. As Poynter's Roy Peter Clark says: Any word at the end of a sentence plays jazz.

Use attribution sparely. Use only as much as the reader needs to avoid confusion or to hear you say: I didn't make this up.

Use proper nouns - titles, names of organizations - as little as possible. They clutter sentences.

Declare war on "to be" verbs, which lack power. Seek verbs that work hard: "amble" instead of "walk" or "smash" instead of "break."

Read your work aloud to give your ear a sense of its pace and rhythm. If it's difficult to speak, it's equally hard to read. If it sounds out of tune, go back and sharpen your nouns and verbs.

Finally: Revise, revise, revise. Be tough on every word. Do the hard work now and you'll spare yourself some agony later when the copy desk calls.
Best of all, you're almost guaranteed to avoid the ax.