William Strunk Jr., in Elements of Style, famously declares: “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”

Though not prone to following rules to the letter, I believe this to be true. I also know that clarity and simplicity is not easily achieved.

The other day as I struggled to write a tweet (a word that I cannot say without feeling funny), I came to this conclusion: Twitter is making me a better writer. Not in the traditional sense. (See, that was a fragment.) People surely do butcher the Queen’s English in texts, IMs, tweets and emails. I’m speaking strictly to conveying a point in as succinct a fashion as possible.

Twitter’s 140 character limit forces me to get to the point. I’ve found myself writing and rewriting entries, and I know I’ve deleted far more than I’ve posted.

Every tweet must tell.