Stars and Astral Cars

Brevity isn’t a crime.

I should repeat that to myself every time I sit down to write.

As a reader/watcher/listener, I value the crap out of brevity. Tell me the facts in as few words/minutes as possible. I should mention that facts, in this case, is a variable that stands for all things that encompass a work. This includes plot and story elements, character development, environment, symbolism, external factors, etc. All of it. 

Strunk would agree:

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. ~William Strunk, Jr., The Elements of Style, 1918

I alluded to the consumption of non-written content; today’s films have taken this long-windedness to new levels.

I struggle to think of a worse use of 4 hours and 23 minutes of my time than subjecting myself to this Peter Jackson masturbatory piece of “story-telling”.

On the contrary, a movie like ‘Children of Men’ clocks in at well under 2 hours, but presents a story so rich (and so well-paced) that its effect is lasting.

I digress.

Knowing how much I value this quality, I still find myself preoccupied with measures like word count and presentation time. The only preoccupation should be, “Am I saying everything I want to say?”

That’s the plan from now on.