How Writing is Like a Golf Game

One thing that Strunk & White goes through is removing unnecessary words. The process is about efficency. We use it to make a story easier to read. If we can describe the same things with less words, then the story is easier to read. Strunk felt enough about this to have a whole section devoted to style.

I wonder what Strunk would say about people that use word counts as a measure of success. If you have a 50,000 word novel, how many of those words are used efficently? The number of inefficent words is the difference between a good writer and a bad one. Can a writer call themselves good if their work is unreadable? All other characteristics of a good novelist: storytelling, creativity, and plot are all rendered useless or bad by inefficent (bad) writing.

More like a fencing bout. ^_~

True that meaningless words, or those repeating what's said are unnecassary.

Definitely. Although you also have to consider the fact that you might not be using enough words -- not enough description, dialogue, etc. can cause a story to be unsatisfying to read. So, like all of writing, a healthy balance is what should be strived toward.