On Verbosity
Not everything I write is meant to be short.
Sometimes I write to inform. Sometimes to analyse. Sometimes to document. And sometimes, quite deliberately, I write because my mind is ranting.
A rant is allowed to breathe.
It can circle back. It can emphasise. It can examine the same problem from different angles. It can anticipate objections before somebody inevitably raises them.
That is not automatically bad writing.
Length and verbosity are not the same thing.
Verbosity is using more words than necessary without adding substance. Length can be necessary when those words carry context, evidence, qualification, counterargument or emphasis.
Could a 3,000-word essay become 750 words?
Of course.
A book can become a synopsis too.
But compression inevitably removes something. Sometimes that is dead weight. Good editing removes it. Sometimes it is precisely the nuance that prevents a complicated argument from becoming a simplistic hot take.
I have no interest in reducing every thought to accommodate the shortest available attention span.
Some things deserve a paragraph.
Some deserve an essay.
And occasionally, when the mind is properly irritated, they deserve a bloody long rant.
Those who enjoy it can read.
Those who find it too long have already been provided with the internet’s oldest and most reliable reading tool:
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