Edward M. Lerner Quotes

My stories are very compact. I want them to say the most complex things in the simplest way.

I don't want my readers slowed down by long passages of narrative.

The perfect story is one you can retell in three minutes, and every single sentence is interesting.

Minimalism has a connotation of being reductive, and not in the best way. 'Brevetist' is a better term. I'm trying to be as concise as possible and still getting across to the reader. When information is delivered in that way, it is very satisfying to me.

But the shortest works are always the best.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

If you consistently write 'The sun set' rather than 'The sun sank slowly in the bright western sky,' your story will move three times as fast. Of course, there are times you want the longer version for atmosphere - but not many. Wordiness not only kills pace; it bores readers.

As for dialogue, I think it keeps things moving to cut to the chase.

I think it's such a challenge to tell a story, and I think, to be honest, the shorter, the clearer, the better.

The art of the three-minute song is more like journalism than writing a big 400-page book. You want to be brief, you want to make sense right yen and there. And sometimes that takes a bit of work.

I kind of hate over-explanation in comics.

The lessons learned in journalism also apply. Writing for NPR has taught me to cut a piece in half and then in half again - without losing the essence. Apply that to the swollen prose of a bulky novel and you might reveal a beautiful work.

A book should be luminous not voluminous.

It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else.

A good rule for writers: do not explain overmuch.

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

It has often been said there’s so much to be read, you never can cram all those words in your head. So the writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads. That's why my belief is the briefer the brief is, the greater the sigh of the reader's relief is. And that's why your books have such power and strength. You publish with shorth! (Shorth is better than length.)

To say more while saying less is the secret of being simple.

With few words, one can speak the truth.

When a writer tries to explain too much, he's out of time before he begins.

The best advice on writing I've ever received was from William Zinsser: 'Be grateful for every word you can cut.'

There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification.

If you can't be smart or funny, be brief.

The great art of writing is knowing when to stop.

Anything that can be put in a nut shell should remain there.