© Adrian Mealing
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Having a word limit like 550 really does sharpen the mind up; there are certain things I want to say in a small space and when I rewrite this column the rewriting is always cutting and cutting whilst keeping the shape and the rhythm of the piece intact… keeping an eye on your word count is vital. IAN McMILLAN
The ‘bard of Barnsley’, Ian McMillan, was writing about his weekly column in the Yorkshire Post Magazine. Writing to a specified word count is a very good discipline. Perhaps it’s more a journalistic than a creative writing skill, but almost all writing competitions, fiction or non-fiction, set a stipulated maximum word count. It’s sensible to stick strictly to the limit specified. Even a couple of words above that limit can give the judge(s) an easy reason to reject an entry. At the writing group I belong to, every month we all write a piece of prose or poetry on the same theme.