Freelance Health Writers Need to Be Concise

"Sorry this letter was so long...I didn't have time to make it short." – Mark Twain.

Whether you're a content manager starting your company's blog and social media, or if you're a writer looking to create high-performing copy for top companies...

The key to your success lies in fewer words.

This doesn't mean less effort, though. In fact it's just the opposite.

The truth is that lean writing takes far more effort.

We'll get to the 'how' in just a second.

But why is concise writing so important in the first place?

It's all about attention

Writing short is all about conserving the reader's attention.

If they feel you're taking too long to make a point...

They'll bail.

Why?

Because more words equals more resistance.

And as the mental resistance of reading adds up...

Your audience will instinctively search for less resistance elsewhere.

Attention = snapped.

This is why a sentence and paragraph should have absolutely no more words than necessary to adequately convey the point.

If Mark Twain knew how crucial it was to write short in the 1800s,

Back when there were nothing to do...

Then how much more is this the case today when we have unlimited distractions in our phones?

Here's how to write lean

Cutting extra words has a double effect.

For one, it reduces drag. You get to the point quicker, and that's what people want when there's a million other things for them to do.

For two, lean writing frees up word count so you can ADD MORE VALUE to the piece.

So the basic formula is this:

1. Get to the point fast

2. Make your points extremely valuable

It's simple in theory, but difficult in practice.

Because adding value means researching and wrapping your mind around a concept long enough until you have unique distillations.

This isn't something every freelance health writer (or even most) is willing to do.

As a content manager I’ve had many writers ask if I can pay for an extra 300 words so they can make the piece more valuable. 

My answer was always yes – but only after they cut 300 words from their draft.

If they needed the extra words then, I'd happily pay.

Thing is, they never needed the extra words!!!

(A novel way to get better product from your writers, fyi.)

Especially for less experienced freelance health writers, there’s not only excess words in a sentence to trim, but there are entire sentences and paragraphs waiting to be slashed.

Here’s an example from a recent article a freelancer helped me out on:

“When fruit is dried, or pureed and dehydrated in the case of fruit leather, this concentrates the natural fruit sugars. This means you’ll have the same amount of sugar in a much smaller serving of dried fruit than whole fruit.”

This is a fine paragraph for a beginner. But to take this to the next level, all I had to do was cut ✂

“Dehydrating a fruit concentrates its sugars, leading to more sugar per ounce than whole fruit."

That edit shaved off over 100% of what I ended up keeping. So the reader was able to understand the point and move on without wading through unnecessary muck.

That's how you keep their attention.

Now let’s be clear: 

Most of us draft redundantly. That’s okay, and it’s good that we write a thing from different angles so we can understand it better.

But before you publish or hand it in, it’s necessary to eliminate those redundancies either by cutting words/sentences or rephrasing things so you pack more value into less space.

Final thought

When you spend more effort trimming your copy and adding value...

Your audience and users will sail through your content and beg for more.

Do you not have enough time to write lean? Are your writers too lazy to only write what's valuable?

Let me take care of the hard work for you.

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