Saying more with less
Sometimes, you can say the most with the fewest words. Counterintuitive, perhaps, but bear with me.
Several years ago, my wife and I were enjoying a slow cruise on the lake with her brother’s family. A young man zoomed by on a personal water craft.
This was several years ago, and these mini-speedboats were a much less common sight than they are now, much more worthy of note. We watched this young hot-shot zip around the lake for a few minutes. I commented to my brother-in-law that I thought it would be fun to ride one of those things.
He nodded and said, “Yeah. I tried it once.” He paused for a moment. “Looks easy.”
That was all he said, and that was all that he needed to say.
He could have gone on in great detail about how personal water craft were not very stable (early models were far less stable than they are now, and prone to tipping over), and an inexperienced rider could easily be dumped off. He could have gone into detail about his his attempts to mount one.
But all of that detail would have taken away from the impact, and humor, of “Looks easy.”
Leaving a single phrase to stand alone is like putting a nice wide mat around a picture. The white space around the picture reduces distraction and helps your eye focus on the picture. Your goal is to help the audience focus their attention on a carefully selected detail.
But my brother-in-law’s simple phrase, “Looks easy,” doesn’t just tell you a lot about his experience trying to ride a personal water craft. It tells you a lot about him.
The fact that he doesn’t feel that it’s necessary to go into more detail, that he can leave it at those two little words, gives you a snapshot of his laconic personality, and his sense of humor.
Roy Jacobsen
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