Tips for Cutting Stories:

Whether Wire or Local

(Even if you have no plans ever to be an editor, as a reporter you are going to be asked to cut your own stories – either for another edition of the paper that does not need the longer version or for the Web.)

A good editor should be able to turn a longish story into a shorter version or even a brief that is still dense with information.

  • If you have the time, always read the full story before editing it for length.
    • This is actually a good rule even if you are not cutting the story. If you have the time, read the story while sitting on your hands.
  • If you are trimming long stories into a shorter version or boiling them down to a brief you need to:
    • Carefully condense the text but keep the key elements.
    • Don’t just chop it off at the bottom – many stories are not written in the inverted pyramid.
    • Often late in stories – especially the way many are written these days – there are key points that need to be retained.
  • Keep an eye out for:
    • For long quotes that can be boiled down or even paraphrased.
    • Weak, say-nothing quotes that can be cut.
    • Redundant passages and comments that say same the same thing a second or third time.
    • Don’t cut good, telling quotes – look for the bland and inconsequential
  • Cut all repetition and unnecessary attribution.
  • Cut all muddiness.
    • Of course, this requires some critical thinking about what is unclear muddy writing.
    • But note: Wire copy is especially known for verbosity and repeating longwinded passages from over-written bureaucratic statements and press releases.
  • Cut away all needless words.
  • Translate jargon, but make sure in doing so you do not inject any inaccuracies into the story.
  • Whack any clichés. Use clear, simple English. This, of course, is something you always should do with any story.
  • Remove background – but don’t lose relevant context
  • With wire stories, change any non-U.S. or non-regional terms into understandable English. (For example: Translate metrics; translate currency into dollars; add locations or directions if the story is about a place your readers do not know about; translate words that do not have the same meaning in American English or are not familiar to American readers:
    • e.g.
      • To table a bill in Britain means to revive it, but in the U.S. it means to kill it from further consideration.
      • Lorry in Britain means truck.
      • Shag in Britain does not refer to a kind of rug popular in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s.
      • If a Canadian says “I got a needle,” she means “I got a shot.”
  • Watch out – don’t cut first references or move second references before the first ref.
  • When you think you are done, comb back through your story to check:
    • For first refs problems
    • To see if numbers still add up
    • To see how it flows
    • To see if there are any holes a reader would spot