Last night as I lay delirious with fever (I’m sick) in bed I began to wonder if, in our modern age, we have traded in prophets, fortune-tellers and runes for acronyms. I am referring specifically to my grade teachers that had those awful neon poster with motivational acronyms like “K.I.S.S.” (Keep it simple, stupid). This in turn made me wonder if Occam’s razor—the simplest solution is best—was also right. Just before I nodded off to sleep (only to encounter very strange dreams) I thought that there is some truth to this acronym, but stop calling me stupid.

When I was nineteen I worked for Sears Parts & Service’s call center where I was part of a trained team to troubleshoot appliances and home electronics over the phone. This is the place where horror stories about setting up an senior’s VCR over the phone are born. One phone call sticks out in my mind. A man’s washing machine was broken, he called for parts to fix it, and luckily someone passed him to me. He was having a hard time because the tub wasn’t spinning properly. He had already replaced the motor, timer and a handful of parts, but he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I know that some of you are doing the math in your head because this guy had probably already spent more on parts than the machine was worth. I said to him it sounds like the belt is just slipping. He said I never thought of that. He bought a new $5 belt and I never heard from him again.

If you are anything like me or the belt-guy then you probably have a tendency to assume that you need to do more to fix the problem, but the truth is—more often than not—you need to do less. This is especially true in writing. I often find that I have so many ideas that I want to weave together and the harder I try the more convoluted it gets—the quicksand of writing. I end up writing more and more to try and explain myself. When (if) I finish that post it usually doesn’t make sense to me and I know it won’t make sense to anyone else.

The solution? Keep it simple. I do not mean your writing should be simple, but the path to your subject matter needs to be. Write exactly what you want to say down. Just a concrete sentence or two. Begin writing with those sentences as the center of your post. Then you can begin to use your ideas to build on and add more to the subject matter. You will likely find in the end you won’t use that initial sentence. Take the time to center your writing and the rest will be simple—right?

Photo by Tom Chambers