Where are My Pruning Shears?

"Don't say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired, Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident."

~ William Zinsser

In On Writing Well, William Zinsser recommends we prune out small words that qualify how we feel and think and see. Words like:

a bit
a little
sort of
kind of
rather
quite
very
too
pretty much
in a very real sense
often
somewhat

The list is much longer, of course, but those are a few examples provided by Zinsser of words that "dilute" our effectiveness as writers. Our powers of persuasion are strengthened when we leave out the qualifiers and let our characters simply feel and think and see. He sums up the importance of this trait in our writing nicely.

The larger point here is one of authority. Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of trust on the part of the reader. He wants a writer who believes in himself and what he is saying. Don't diminish this belief. Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.

It's so easy to fall into the trap of qualifying statements. I see it in the writing of my students all the time. From now on, I will look more closely at my own writing. Now, where did I put those pruning shears?

How about you?
Do you need to sharpen your pruning shears?