My darlings lie all around me, brutally slaughtered, and my hands are dripping in blood. Yet, the word count at the bottom of my screen says I’m still 200 words over the limit. I sigh. A passionately poetic description of the dancer’s hand movements stares me in the eyes, quietly pleading for mercy. I close my eyes and brandish the knife.

It’s the second day of the Springback Academy at the Spring Forward festival, and an ever-so-slight sense of panic is setting in. As someone used to writing lavishly verbose 900-word dissections, I ask myself, what can you even say in 150 words?

You can order a quick coffee while rushing between venues. You can ask hotel staff for a spare keycard after locking yours in your room, and still have enough words left over to thank them 34 times.

What you cannot do, I was convinced, is describe, interpret and evaluate a full-length dance performance.

As you may have gleaned, dear reader – despite the promise in this feature’s title – I have not yet completely mastered the elusive, razor-edged art of getting to the point.

So consider this piece a slightly theatrical survival guide from someone wrestling with word counts – stitched together from trial-and-error, tips picked up along the way, and some great advice from the mentors of Springback Academy: Kelly Apter, Laura Cappelle, Oonagh Duckworth, Sanjoy Roy and Emily May.

Opening moves

My first instinct was to write a longer review and then simply cut it down, but that approach quickly backfired. Every sentence was tightly bound to the next. It’s easy to get trapped in a web of your own syntax, where nothing can be cut without everything else unravelling. Eventually, I realised I couldn’t just trim; I had to build differently from the beginning – starting with the notes.

My tip: Clean up your notes immediately and mercilessly before they ever get the chance to intertwine into fixed sentences. If it isn’t essential to your point, cut it.

Focusing on what sticks

But what to focus on, when you can’t possibly cover it all? If a long review allows for context and nuance, the short form demands clarity and weight.
My mentor Kelly Apter framed it like this: ‘If I’ve only got 150 words to play with, then I look for the aspects I’m most passionate about – what intrigued me, engaged me emotionally, or perhaps frustrated me?’ Laura Cappelle’s approach is similar: ‘Select one scene that really struck you… Use it to build a narrative around your opinion.’

A strong image doesn’t just illustrate your point, it can become the spine of the whole review.

Oonagh Duckworth echoed this: ‘Don’t be restricted by the word count – try to find the essence of what you thought about the piece, and the image that is perhaps the most prevailing.’

My tip: Find a punchline sentence that expresses your opinion to end your review on, then build up to it. The ending shapes what the reader remembers.

Saying more with less

Once I had that focus – the moment, the image, the punchline – the rest started to fall away. Not painlessly, but purposefully. It wasn’t just about trimming to stay within the word count anymore, it was about sharpening the blade.

My tip: Bring down the poetics. Beautiful sentences are easy to write, but hard to justify. If they don’t carry opinion, rhythm, or intent, they can go.

Sanjoy Roy emphasised the necessary sacrifice: ‘It’s like Sophie’s Choice – painful, because even good ideas have to go. But it forces you to confront your priorities and focus on what’s truly essential.’ While Emily May found a metaphor: ‘There’s a pottery technique called sgraffito, where you make something by taking things away.’

And what tools can you use to do the delicate scraping?

Oonagh’s trick is ‘a shaving off of extraneous adjectives. Or you can even invent words and then stick hyphens between them, like leap-come-fall.’

Emily also pushes for elegance through precision – giving opinions while describing. Her advice is to ‘use specific adjectives that imply feeling, or combine description and opinion in a single sentence to avoid wasting space on separate paragraphs.’ As well as: ‘Read your review out loud. You’ll hear the clunky parts, and that’s where you cut.’

My tip: Pretend this is an internet forum and you’re writing a comment. Short, sharp, maybe even humorous – something that catches the eye and communicates efficiently.

Lessons from the Knife

Truthfully, most of my reviews still hovered over the word count. Old habits die slow and somewhat dramatic. But somewhere in the middle of drafting, cutting, and reading aloud, I stopped thinking of short reviews as compressed longer texts. They require a separate approach: cleaner intent, sharper rhythm and a bit of authorial ruthlessness.

I still miss some of my darlings, but I’ve made peace with the knife. And now, when faced with a word limit, at least I know how to begin – with the point.