900-word Crash

(E-mail from one of my favorite writers.) 

Here is the centerpiece story for discussion today at Poynter—8,200 words! What do I have to learn from that? I get 900 words tops! There's a real disconnect between our paper and the best in the industry …   

E-mail back:  Pitting one paper's 4,000 words with another’s 900 words tops is certain death. There’s nothing wrong with a beautifully fashioned 900 words. Or even 500. You might remember that William Allen White's Pulitzer Prize winning piece  (1922, Emporia Gazette) was three grafs and 345 words.  Length does not mean power. Length does not mean skill. It doesn’t insure that someone will read what you write.  Power (and skill) is in hearing the rhythms, nailing the words, seeing the structure. It’s choosing which idea to boil down to its fiber-rattling essence;  knowing which words do that best (and in what order), knowing which 90 percent of your notebook riches to dump, ignore, excise; finding the image that sets the whole thing in motion. That is what makes a story. No matter what paper, how many words, or what topic.  Sorry if I can't commiserate with your angst here. But I think framing your possibilities the way you have above is just a setup for more heartache. I have seen you soar and I don’t want to watch you crash.