Tin Can Alley

Remember back in the day when a tin can telephone was the way to go?  The string had to be just the right length and pulled to just the right tension and you had to be listening with your head cocked at just the right angle before you could hear your buddy on the other end.  The fact that you missed a word here or there just added to the mystery of playing "spy" on a hot summer day when you were hanging out with the gang at your secret hideout.

And do you remember in the hilarious Whoopi Goldberg movie Jumping Jack Flash when she was trying to decode a secret message from a mysterious man named Jack and she just couldn't make out the lyrics to the song?  Somehow it didn't seem to matter...Whoopi muddled through somehow and still managed to break the code and save the guy from being killed anyway.

Maybe you can even remember those times when you sat in a circle and someone whispered something in your ear and you had to turn to whisper it in the next person's ear.  That secret message had to travel all around the circle until the last person had to say it out loud.  Remember how funny it was that the message almost always ended up being completely different from when it started?

Unfortunately some stories can begin this way.  We try hard to get our vision across in a clear, concise manner but somehow the words become muddled somewhere along the way which leaves our readers scratching their heads and wondering what we are really trying to say.  It is up to us to use our skill to cut excess verbage from our stories, to streamline our ideas, to polish each sentence until only the strongest words are left to dazzle our audience.  Only then will our message become crystal clear...