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.
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