Here's my version of the first line in Huckleberry Finn: "You don't know about me unless you've read a book called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter." 1. "Unless" works better here and doesn't call attention to itself. "Without" is too jarring and the reader may have to read the sentence again to follow the thought. Always consider the reader. 2. Turning "you have" into the contraction "you've" shaves off a syllable and reads more smoothly. Cut syllables whenever you can. 3. "By the name of" is just a wordy way of saying "called". The original sentence contained 25 words. Mine contains 21. That's 16% fewer words. Imagine combing through the entire book and making all these tiny tweaks.
Thank you so much for these lectures!
The audio needs serious rework.
I second that.
Here's my version of the first line in Huckleberry Finn:
"You don't know about me unless you've read a book called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter."
1. "Unless" works better here and doesn't call attention to itself. "Without" is too jarring and the reader may have to read the sentence again to follow the thought. Always consider the reader.
2. Turning "you have" into the contraction "you've" shaves off a syllable and reads more smoothly. Cut syllables whenever you can.
3. "By the name of" is just a wordy way of saying "called".
The original sentence contained 25 words.
Mine contains 21.
That's 16% fewer words.
Imagine combing through the entire book and making all these tiny tweaks.