Dear Direct Response Letter Subscriber:

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When asked how he wrote such great novels, Elmore Leanord said:

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"I leave out the boring parts."

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A large part of the writer's job is "selectivity"—knowing what to put in, and what to leave out.

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In nonfiction writing, "information density" refers to both the amount of information and its complexity.

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If you suspect you overwrite, turn the information density down a notch or two—and see how much better your copy reads when you do so.

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Isaac Asimov said the challenge for him as a science writer was to absorb a ton of information and then gently "ladle it out" to the reader.

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This is not as easy as it sounds; the old saying is: Easy reading is hard writing.

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Back in the day, the challenge for copy and content writers was gathering enough information on the topic.

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I always told clients who asked me how much background information they should send me, "More is better than less."

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Today, the challenge is being selective. Both for the client briefing for the writer as well as for the writer turning all this info into serviceable prose.

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For instance, for one 500-word blog post on leadership, the client sent me links to over two dozen leadership articles he found online.

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And of course he could have found and sent dozens more. So at some point, both the client and the writer should have enough.

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That's because the cost of going overboard in information density, and the additional work it entails, risks diminishing return for all that extra labor—as this short video on the "exponential curve of excellence" illustrates.

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For the writer faced with an overload of source material, my tip is this: If something seems too much or too difficult or too heavy or too esoteric, it probably is.

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Your options include:

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Leave it out.

Simplify it.

Relegate it to an appendix.

Make it more interesting.

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One good way to make it more interesting is to discover a fascinating fact about your topic to engage the reader's curiosity and intellect.

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And don't worry—it's in there somewhere. Joseph Kelly, an Eisenhower speechwriter, famously said there is a kernel of interest in everything made by man or God.

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Find the kernel; it's pure gold for your writing.

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Sincerely,

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