What’s the fastest way to simplify rules? Writer Deej Johnson reveals three ways to shorten sentences

“What’s the fastest way to simplify rules?” This is a question that inventors and publishers ask me a lot. And while it’s difficult to give a one-size-fits-all answer, I’ll say this… One of the most common problems in badly written rules is long sentences. That’s because long sentences send the reading age of game rules ROCKETING!

So… I’ve already written a piece on the importance of clear rules here. But long sentences need an article of their own! Why? Because they can be the difference between a child reading rules on their own and needing supervision… They can also cause cramped text, waste advert space – and cause confusion. And how about on the back of your box? There, a long sentence can be the difference selling a game and not selling one!

That being the case, is there a hard and fast rule about ideal sentence length? Not exactly. That’s because you can have a short sentence made up of extremely long words… Or a longer sentence made from much shorter words! My general feeling, though, is that rules should avoid all words of more than three syllables… And sentences should be no more than 15 words long. With all that in mind, here are three ways to write shorter sentences.

Remove adverbs and adjectives
“The road to Hell is paved with adverbs.” So says bestselling author Stephen King. What’s more, writer and philosopher Mark Twain tells us, “When you catch an adjective, kill it!” But what are they on about? Well, an adverb is a word that modifies the meaning of verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. Meanwhile, an adjective is a word you use with a noun to describe it more fully. To illustrate this, here’s a purposefully overwritten sentence. The adverbs are in red. The adjectives are in green.

Just before we remove the two adverbs, I’ll call attention to a helpful fact… They both end with the letters ‘ly’. Adverbs often do! So if you’ve got a long sentence, run your eye along it. Do you see a word that ends ‘ly’? If so, there’s a chance it can come out.

Now, I don’t want to create the impression that the whole of our language is lazing around doing nothing! Adjectives and adverbs can help make writing rich and bouncy. Even so, when you write rules – and space is at a premium – some words aren’t that helpful. For example, this opinion piece is all about shortening sentences. So do I really need to use the word ‘long’ to define the problem?

Similarly, I’m specifically telling you to remove adverbs and adjectives here. Do I need to add colour to the picture by saying ‘pesky’? Also, the last part of the sentence talks about adding words… So what purpose does qualifying them as ‘extra’ serve?! Of course they’re extra! Let’s punch out all of those:

There are more edits that I’d make to that sentence! I don’t think ‘some’ is working particularly hard. Nor is ‘easiest’… And here’s a quick tip: the words, ‘of the’ often waste space… What do they bring to the party here? Not a lot! We can punch them out with an almost effortless tweak… See how much shorter this sentence is compared to the original:

Other ways to shorten sentences…
But what if you’re not crazy about just removing adverbs and adjectives? Then you can consider breaking long sentences in two! You can do that with one of five punctuation marks. Now, your English teacher might have said to end sentences with one of three marks… Specifically: a question mark, exclamation mark or full stop. If so, you might now consider two forgotten options: the interrobang and the ellipsis.

An interrobang?!
The interrobang means using both a question mark and an exclamation mark. Whoever heard of such a thing?! Since the interrobang is really an excited question mark, though, its use is limited. You can only use it in sentences where you ask a surprising and rhetorical question.

Ellipsis…
Far more helpful is an ellipsis. That’s the proper name for three dots that imply a sentence is tailing off. Like this… It lets the reader know that a related thought follows. A lot of people cringe at the idea of using an interrobang or an ellipsis. Discussing this, that mainly seems to be because they were told it was wrong at school. That’s such nonsense; they’re perfectly agreeable in the right place. In fact, they’re incredibly useful. We’ll come back to them shortly. Meanwhile…

Full stop
Remember the kind-of-true rule that says a sentence must have a verb? If so, you can see the logic of this. Any sentence with more than one word that tells you to do something has the potential to break in two. For a real-world example, look at the image below. Ignore the coloured words for the moment.

At some point during this sentence, the writer wants your focus to switch. They move us on from separating cards to putting them somewhere. Now! The fact that there are two different actions here suggests we could make two sentences. How? With a simple full stop! By the way, you can also see exactly where the focus switches. It’s on a type of word called a conjunction. A conjunction simply joins two thoughts together… We don’t want to get bogged down with this, suffice to say conjunctions include:

There are others, but you get the idea. Can you see any of these words in a long sentence? In the example above, I put one in yellow: ‘and’. That might be an easy place to break this in two! Just replace ‘and’ with a full stop… Then capitalise the p in ‘place’:

Here’s another real-world example… And it’s much worse. Brace yourself!

Jesus wept. At 34 words, that’s a truly horrible sentence! To start sorting it out, look for a conjunction. It’s in yellow here: ‘while’… Notice, too, the action words in blue. These refer to people doing things on either side of while: ‘praised’ and ‘decide’. This looks complicated, but it’s actually an easy one. Take out ‘while’ and replace it with a full stop… You’ll still have a miserable bit of copy, but at least it’s in two sentences!

Active vs. passive voice
Now, there are a LOT of other edits I’d make to this. There isn’t room to go into full detail here. Nevertheless, let’s switch it all to the active voice… This sentence is passive: ‘If a child attempts to perform a task without your help, they should be praised.’ Why is it passive? Because it isn’t explicitly clear who should praise the child! How about saying: ‘If a child attempts to perform a task without your help, praise them.’? That sounds better… And loses two more words!

One sentence, one action
When you edit rules, keep in mind that the copy should be telling people what to DO. It makes sense, then, to focus on who is taking which action. The current example is all over the place. People are ‘attempting’, ‘performing’, ‘helping’, ‘praising’, ‘deciding’, ‘working’, ‘helping’ again… And ‘supporting’! It’s just wayyyyyy too much. Again, I don’t have space here to fully explain which redundancies need to go…

Nevertheless, my full rewrite of this sentence is below. You’ll see that it distils things down dramatically. It CLEARLY tells the reader to do ONE thing based on the potential actions of others. As a result, we now have two sentences: one with 11 words and the other with nine. That’s infinitely preferable to the 34-word behemoth with which we started.

The Comma Clue
It’s worth noting that – on some level – many writers know their sentences are too long… That’s why they insert commas: to tell us where to breathe! This is why commas are often quite near conjunctions. But here’s an example of how taking out conjunctions doesn’t always work:

So here, replacing the conjunction ‘as long as’ with a full stop won’t work. Not to worry! It just means that a full stop isn’t the answer in this case. Personally, I’d ask myself: can I handle it with a question mark?

Question Mark
Do you hate people who ask and answer their own questions? I don’t! So I don’t mind breaking up sentences with rhetorical questions either… To help make things clear here, the verbs are in blue above. The conjunction is in yellow. That’s still where I’d break the sentence! So I might suggest the sentence becomes:

Used sparingly, this is a terrific trick. Never mind what your English teacher said… Give it a go!

Ellipses and Exclamation Marks
These work well when sentences carry too much information about the same thing. In the next example, the writer again uses the passive voice. They also give us a comma exactly where we can split the sentence. Take a look at this:

Just switch to the active voice, then replace that comma with an ellipsis… Or an exclamation mark!

So there we go! Three ways to write shorter sentences – with a few extra tips for good measure. If you have any questions about your copy, do feel free to drop me a line.

–

To stay in the loop with the latest news, interviews and features from the world of toy and game design, sign up to our weekly newsletter here

More Recent Opinion

Which body language should you never ignore in creative meetings? Deej Johnson discovers the answer…

Creative consultant Deej Johnson reveals the body-language gesture you should always question!

IDEO’s Michelle Lee on why the choice between fun and sustainable isn’t an either/or for toy designers

Michelle Lee – Partner & Managing Director of IDEO’s Play Lab – on why the choice between delivering joy and preserving the planet isn’t an either/or for toy designers.

AI: Embrace the Revolution!

Kids Brand Insight’s Steve Reece evaluates the opportunities – and danger – that AI presents to designers and inventors.

15 years of Ridley’s Games…

Emma Holmes, Head of Brand at Ridley’s Games, reflects back on 15 years of the brand – and what the future holds!

The Brand Radar: Barbie, The Design Museum and the power of exhibitions

Start Licensing’s Ian Downes reports back on a visit to the Design Museum’s Barbie exhibition, and why it’s an encouraging experience for brand owners, licensees and designers alike.

Conquering self-doubt

The Plan A Group’s Lee Allentuck puts Imposter Syndrome under the microscope.