Hello, and welcome to the last technique in strategy one. We're already at the end of strategy one kind of crazy, huh? But the last technique, and I mentioned William Zinser earlier he is a famous American writer. He's a journalist. He's a writing teacher, and he's one of the most renowned and influential writing teachers and nonfiction writers in American history, especially in the 20th century. William Zinser has a technique called the bracket technique.

And if you check out some of his books, especially on writing Well, he explains how he uses the bracket technique and how you can transfer that to your own writing. What he says though, is that put brackets around anything not doing useful work. So once you get done with a draft a completed rough draft, you should go through your piece printed out on paper and have a pen or a pencil. And go through it. And knowing some of the strategies that we've talked about the adverbs, the adjectives, the descriptors and qualifiers, wordy things, things that are being repetitive, not only on the word level, but also on the sentence level and even on the global level, and in between every on every level. Take a pen and put brackets around anything not doing useful work, anything that doesn't do anything different or unique from everything else on the page.

And then he states that most drafts can be cut by 50% in on Rodwell. Print your work, get a pen and put brackets around all such words, phrases and sentences, that allows you to return to it and decide if you need to cut. Most of us are very attached to our writing. It's a very personal process and so we're very closed off in protective of it, kind of like we are emotional sales in our personal lives. And that's interesting. stainable is a very vulnerable process, there's no doubt that writing is a very vulnerable process.

And so you need to be compassionate with yourself when you do it. But there's also a certain amount of brutality and firmness that you need to have in your writing as well. And so those brackets are almost like a little protective wall around that piece. And so you're not cutting it yet. You're just thinking, I may not need this. And so then when you go back and look at it, you've already thought about it.

And so then cutting it may make more sense. And so it's also a little psychological trick to help you to cut things if you have trouble with that. Some people don't, but some people do. And so then you can say, Well, you know, I don't need that. And so you can cut it and you're more okay with that. So once you go back, decide what needs to be cut and there may be some things that you realize do their own work and they're useful and so but you do need to be brutal and cut what is unnecessary.

So use Williams interest bracket technique and the gist of it. To once you get a copy of your draft, look at it with a pen, go through it and put brackets around anything not doing useful work. And example. If you look at the example it says Larry Walk slowly through the door. As he went through the door, he gazed longingly back at Isabelle, who kind of looked heartbroken. And then what I did here was put brackets around anything that may not be doing useful work.

Is it really necessary? Is it saying anything new. So it's taking all of these strategies, all these techniques, I should say, techniques one through seven and culminating them into this practice of the bracket technique. And keep in mind, there will be other techniques in other strategies that we're doing that you may also want to use to help you with the bracket technique as well, but a correction to the Senate. Ultimately, everything that was bracketed was cut in this Senate, but he Here's how the Senate's became streamlined. As Larry lingered at the door, he gave it Isabelle who sat us returned his expression, we still get the meaning of the emotional exchange between these two individuals.

But we get it in a much more efficient, precise and clear way and it still engages the reader, it leaves a little mystery, but it also lets us know that these two people obviously have deep feelings for each other. And there's a lot of complexity there. And there's obviously something larger than them pulling them apart. And so you get the clarity of the meaning in that sentence without all those unnecessary qualifiers, adverbs and things like that. The first one was walked slowly. Larry lingered in the door obviously means he's going slowly as he went through the door, we've already said that because he went through the door so it's been said twice, it's not necessary.

He gazed longingly back It is a bill he gazed at Isabel in her sad eyes will returning his gays, so we know that he's looking back at her and then lastly, heartbroken. We can tell based on the expressions and the body language, what the emotions in this situation probably are. So, the last technique culminates one through seven strategies, techniques here, pardon me, and that is to use Williams enters bracket technique, and you can apply all those others to the bracket techniques to help you in your actual writing process. So I will see you in strategy two, and I hope that you've enjoyed strategy one