Bring Out The Flavor
“You can rule the world” is how Anthony Bourdain described the power of a good demi-glace. Such a potent sauce can be made with meat stock, red wine, shallots, and herbs, slowly simmered until it is reduced to a liquid so viscous it coats the back of a spoon. Reduction: That’s the key. The flavor of a life-changing, world-ruling sauce is created not by adding but by evaporating.
Like too much liquid in a sauce, you can dilute your writing with too many words. More is not always better. In fact, more can be harmful. Too many words, without enough entertainment or insights, makes a reader lethargic and makes them less likely to think that reading your work was worth their time. Worst of all, “too much” dilutes the flavor of your writing, and that flavor is what your reader will take away — the aftertaste of your article/essay/story/book. The flavor is what we remember from what we read.
This is why compression is a vital skill in the age of the Internet. It’s an art, even. You need to distill the essence down, into a small vessel of words. Reduce. Evaporate. Concentrate.
Attention is a scarce and delicate commodity — hard to obtain, easy to lose. By homing in on compact storytelling and insight-dense prose, you not only respect your reader's time but also elevate their reading experience. The economy of your writing and the concentration of your ideas are what leaves readers satiated and satisfied. Compression is the essential process that turns your watery broth into liquid gold —rich, potent, and free-of-clutter.
Morgan Housel, the bestselling author of Psychology of Money, says,
“Writing is an efficiency game. Whoever says the most stuff in the fewest words wins…. Leave out the parts that readers tend to skip.”
Concision is not about shortness but density; concentration invites a closer engagement with each word. Ask yourself, “Does this sentence serve a purpose in supporting the thesis of this article?” “Is this page worth cutting down a tree?” “Will the reader notice that this paragraph is missing if I rip it out of the story?” Concision is a clarion call to focus on substance over superfluity, to cultivate an appreciation for the vital over the verbose.
How do you bring out the flavor? Commit to rigorous editing and question every word. Aim for sentences that pack a punch, paragraphs that propel you forward, and sections that guarantee understanding and spark curiosity. Concentrate. Reduce. Evaporate the excess and bring out the flavor of what you’re really trying to say.
