Brief and to the point, sometimes to the point of curtness. From the Greek Lakōnikos, “of Laconia,” the region around Sparta. The Spartans were famous for speaking sparely, and one of the great laconic moments in history happened around 346 BC, when Philip of Macedon sent a threat to Sparta: “If I invade Lakonia, I shall raze Sparta to the ground.” The Spartans replied with a single word: If.
You gotta love it.
Related words include laconism (a concise statement) and the adjective Laconian (referring to the region itself). Don’t confuse laconic with taciturn—a taciturn person is habitually silent, while a laconic person speaks rarely but pointedly. A laconic character in your fiction will say less than other characters, but every word will count.
Question: Everyone tells me to start with short stories before tackling a novel. I’d rather just write my novel. Why does it matter where I start?
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