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How to approach the text

Unlimited space means you can elaborate on each distinct element

Reduced space means picking what gets elaborated.

I divide elements into two categories:

Functional Elements of the text	Personal Elements
Recipient’s name The award being given The sitting royalty conveying the accolade The AS year	What event the accolade was conveyed at Where the accolade was given Bonafides of the recipient

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How to approach the text

The decision should be based on the material you have for the scroll.

Big EKWiki page? Lots of information in the write up? Really cool anecdote?

Focus on the boast/bonafides.

Particularly special event or an exemplar where an elaborate declaration fits?

Focus on the functional elements of the scroll.

Once you decide, work to combine elements together as efficiently as possible.

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Everyone loves Examples

In the reign of Boris and Natasha, �being the Fifty-Third of the Society, �let the heralds call all to attend them in �the Barony of Bullwinkle at the Fete of the Baronial Anniversary.

If we assume a 60 word allowance, this might seem heavy at 34 words.

But, it covers two functional and two personal elements, while still being highly artistic. Depending on how much information we want to include about the recipient, we might need more room.

It’s using over half of our space, let’s see how we can scale it back.

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Reduce, reduce, reduce

In the reign of Boris and Natasha, being the Fifty-Third of the Society, let the heralds call all to attend them in the Barony of Bullwinkle at the Fete of the Baronial Anniversary.	In Boris and Natasha's first reign, In AS Fifty-Three, Court was held in Bullwinkle as the Baronial Anniversary was celebrated

The new version is 21 words, and slashes some of the artistry, but still hits the same element count as the original.

Can we make it even shorter?

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...and then reduce some more

This final version is 18 words, but you can see that as we strip away words, what is being lost is virtually all the artistic elaboration. If the first one is too long, this last one might be too short.

In the reign of Boris and Natasha, being the Fifty-Third of the Society, let the heralds call all to attend them in the Barony of Bullwinkle at the Fete of the Baronial Anniversary.	In Boris and Natasha's first reign, In AS Fifty-Three, Court was held in Bullwinkle as the Baronial Anniversary was celebrated	Boris and Natasha sat in state at the Anniversary of the Barony of Bullwinkle in AS Fifty-Three.

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… but I skirted some of the rules

Length is not the only issue with the final text.

The final text glosses over the distinction of When an award is conveyed and Where it is conveyed, by implying that the Baronial Anniversary is in the Barony.

Doesn’t work for Crown, Coronation, Championships and other “roving” events.

Also, note that the sitting royalty were not addressed by honorific, but that their position as royalty was only alluded to.

"In the reign of...", "In... first reign" and "...sat in state" allowed me to leverage their position into an active phrase which can be ascribed a date easily.

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How to finish the text

The opening that I used was the original, and longest, one.

With 26 words left, here is how I finished the text.

In recognition for the work <recipient> has done for the newcomers of their Barony, heed forevermore that their loyal subject been awarded the following arms:

Since all I had to do was name the recipient, the accolade and the boast, it was easy to fit all of those elements in together in my allowance.

But what if I had more space?

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Alternative endings

Let’s say I had 40 words instead of 26 for the boast and accolades.

In accordance to the wishes of The Crown, <Recipient> was called forward and commended for their work with the newcomers of the Barony. For this work, they were made a noble <title> of the court and awarded these arms:

Here’s another

<Recipient> was called forward and commended for their gifts of widgets, words of welcome, and assistance to the ditchdiggers of the Barony. As service is close to the heart of Their Majesties, <Recipient> has been awarded these arms:

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What did the alternate endings make room for?

There was more of a boast in the longer endings, while still being reserved.

Plenty of artistic elements that are designed to shape the feel of the text.

"In accordance to the wishes of The Crown...", for example, is pretty superfluous, except to establish the tone of the scroll as a royal pronouncement.

The first ending is high on formality, and lower on personal details. If you wanted to elaborate on the personal achievements of the recipient instead, carving 12-15 words out provided the space to do that in the other alternate ending.

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The Big Finish

Tips for crafting small texts

Know what you can and want to spend the most of your space on.

Combine elements that won’t get a lot of space efficiently.

Be judicious about things you can leave out explicitly but can imply.

Start by just writing something out. Edit as you need to, either up or down.

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Data Points that no one else will be interested in

	Word Allocations to each element:	Original	Option 2	Option 3
Functional		21	21	17
	Recipient's' name	2	2	2
	The award being given	5	9	5
	The sitting royalty conveying the accolade	7	6	6
	The AS year	7	4	4

Personal		25	25	39
	What event the accolade was conveyed at	7	6	8
	Where the accolade was given	5	2	0
	Bonafides of the recipient	13	17	31