The Art of Pitching in 50 words

Writing clearly and concisely comes with a lot of benefits in a world where nobody has the time or energy to read or write verbose emails, messages and other pieces. At times, it is imperative that you convey your idea within 50 words or so, for example, when you are outlining an essay/article or writing a nano summary that comes with a word limitation. Here's how you can make your writing short and succinct.

1. CUT DOWN ON DETAILS.
Don't stray away from your central theme and engage in unnecessary details. Nobody would ask for vivid descriptions when you are to prepare something within or around 50 words. State your point straight and refrain from stating any obvious information that does not add value. 

2. USE CONCRETE LANGUAGE.
Flowery and eloquent words are better left out in this case. Avoid using metaphors, idioms or other literary tools which distract your reader or make him stop and reach for a dictionary. The 'pomp' writing is not a style you should adopt when conciseness is important.
 
3. AVOID INTENSIFIERS.
Learn the difference between these valuable language elements and the ones that sidetrack your theme. Keep the adjectives and adverbs that give your writing impact and clarity. Carefully cut down on the intensifiers and use expressive nouns and verbs to avoid 'stacking' the sentence with extra words. For example, 'He made a long, high-pitched noise' can be rewritten more concisely as 'He squealed.' This saved 4 words in a single sentence but one does need a strong vocabulary for this.

4. PHRASE VS. WORD
Single words can replace many commonly used phrases. These phrases often pop up in our writing that requires a formal tone but they hardly add to the meaning. For example, instead of writing 'people who can speak a variety of languages,' you can simply write 'multilingual people.' 

5. NO' TO QUALIFIERS.
Often we use qualifiers that really aren't necessary to express our meaning (such as 'really' in this sentence). If you can effectively cut out these 'filler' words, you can often eliminate one or two words per sentence. This may not seem like much, but they can add up. Common qualifiers include: actually, really, basically, probably, very, definitely, somewhat, kind of, extremely, practically. 

6. ELIMINATE REDUNDANT PAIRS
When the first word in a pair has roughly the same meaning as the second, choose one. Common examples of redundant pairs include: full and complete, each and every, hopes and dreams, black darkness, first and foremost, true and accurate, always and forever.

7. EDIT
Your first draft will likely have some 'fat,' that is, unnecessary words and phrases that weigh down your text. Remove these useless parts whenever possible. The following words and phrases often constitute 'fat' in writing: very, just, type, due to the fact that, actually, at this moment in time, and so forth. So, edit rigorously if you have to and for long-term benefits, brush up your vocabulary and grammar so that you can write more meaningfully and clearly.