Many of us know how to make our writing clear, concise, and appealing.

But looming deadlines mean that we must often settle for less than our best. While you might go through a dozen drafts of a cover letter or an application essay, you can't do the same for that report or memo due tomorrow. 

That's why ClearWriter focuses on the areas that make the biggest difference to your writing in the shortest time--to make your writing 80% better with only 20% of the effort (an idea called the Pareto principle).

The key is picking the right 20% to focus on. At ClearWriter we emphasize three areas where the payoffs are highest.

Planning intelligently. Most writers start by assembling details, examples, and comments in paragraphs--sporadically making points, rarely conveying a message. Our approach is to do the reverse--to start with your messages, to support them with points, and to use those points to assemble your details, examples, and comments. It's easier said than done, but good planning will slash time from writing, rewriting, and editing. And it's essential for writing in teams. Bad planning can cost organizations hundreds of hours.

Focusing on the areas that readers notice most. Titles, captions, and introductory paragraphs draw your readers' attention, shaping their impressions for better or worse. Many readers will read only these elements. Making sure that they are flawless--and that they communicate your messages--will help you put your best foot forward.

Exploiting proven patterns for writing and editing. Good writing isn't a mystery. We've taken apart the best writing to see what makes it tick, and we've compiled easy fixes for the most common problems. So, if your writing is full of such overweight phrases as 'in relation to,' change these to 'on'or 'about.' Or consider the following passage:

Americans are struck by an annual outbreak of filial sentiment on Mother's Day. They make more long distance calls on Mother's Day than on any other day of the year.

Such successions of two sentences with the same subject are as common as they are uninteresting. But the first sentence can be converted to an introductory phrase to build anticipation:

Struck by an annual outbreak of filial sentiment, Americans make more long distance calls on Mother's Day than on any other day of the year.

Such patterns, which improve writing with a change of position and the cutting of a few words, are the key to writing better in less time.

The next few entries will outline how we apply these three principles to the main steps in any piece of writing: planning, drafting paragraphs and sentences, and editing.

Communicate your ideas as clearly as possible, using no more words than needed.

That's our war cry for writing and editing. Here's why:

• Forcing your readers to slog through needless words shows a lack of respect for their time.
• Talking around your points shows poor command of the material, if done accidentally, or condescension for your reader, if done for purposeful obfuscation.  
• Writing directly is democratic, allowing a broader audience to consider your ideas and agree or disagree.
• Most writing authorities champion brevity as a key virtue. Strunk's command to 'omit needless words' encapsulates--and exemplifies--the goal.

There are equally many reasons why writers fail to reach that goal. Perhaps the most common is not knowing how. Much of what we read is too wordy, yet we imitate the style, unconsciously or consciously. And if we do not fully understand the topic we're writing about, producing direct and concise prose is even more difficult. After all, it's hard to take a straight path when you don't know the way.

Sometimes indirect and wordy prose is more calculated. Legions of abstract words and tangled clauses often march around underweight ideas. Some writers believe that complicated ideas demand complicated writing. The opposite is closer to the truth. The more complicated your ideas, the more you should strive for concise and direct prose, to avoid making your readers' task even more difficult.

The idea is not to be brief all the time or even most of the time. The idea is to be brief unless you have a reason not to be. Even if you have a reason not to be brief, there are ways of handling writing that make it easier for your readers to follow what you're saying.

In coming blog entries and in our online writing training, we'll show you how.