When students arrived for my creative writing course’s first meeting, they read this 38-word message on the board: “The first thing you must learn to do is to be able to write tight. Then, and only then, after you have learned to write tight can you ever hope to be able to learn to write right.” After analyzing the message, they took a test requiring them to rewrite the message, using nothing more than a dash, an exclamation point — and four words.
