Ten Rule in Ten Days - Rule 10: Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip

Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. People don’t skip dialogue.

This may seem to be self evident, but to the writer, and particularly the new writer, it’s not. We often think that what we have to say is so important, and that our writing is so brilliant, that we can go on for pages, and readers will be so enthralled that they will plow through it, absorbing every word.

But think about what you might skip or skim. I bet it’s...