Just use flowy colorful language like the rest of us (10)

In my experience, the hard part of writing a 600 word essay isn't getting to 600 words, it's not going too far over that! Once you get into the flow, it can be hard to stop in time.

Right? You literally only need an opening, like 3 points, and a closing. If it's a good topic, I'm going way past that
- The target word count makes a nice whooshing sound as it goes by, then comes the painful task of deleting half of what you wrote.

Pro tip: if you have a hard time to reach the word limit, just write redundant sentences that add nothing to the essay. Just reiterate what has already been said before, but with different words and sentence structure. Then you will never have a hard time reaching the word limit. It’s not hard. Don’t worry if the sentence is redundant. If you keep your word choice varied, you’ll disguise the fact that you actually have nothing new to say. Word limits will then be the least of your concerns.

853 words. Went and did almost 50% more than required.
- As another commenter said, sometimes once you turn on the bullshitting tap it can be hard to stop

How do they imagine entire books are written?

One sentence at a time.

It's really just about practice, writing in high school is difficult because you are just learning how to really do it correctly. By the time I finished college I could write 3-5 page papers with minimal effort. If I tried to write one today it would probably be extremely difficult since I haven't done it in a while.

Once you understand the formula it gets really easy. Introduction should have 1 sentence about the general topic, 1-2 about your overall thesis/point, 1 sentence for each of 3-5 points you want to make. Each point should get it's own paragraph with 1 sentence to state the point, 1-2 sentences the reference the source material to support it, 1-2 external references if required, and 1 sentence to restate the point you made. The conclusion should have 1 sentence per point you made and 1-2 sentences that restate your overall point of the paper.

It was really hard for me as a freshman in high school. By the end I could crank them out easily. It was all thanks to a simple pair of tricks called practice and learning.

I habe written more than one 600+ words comment on Lemmy about topics I Am absolutely interested in. And even then I sometimes have to hold myself back for the sake of simplicity.

600 words was hard for me because I just get to the fucking point when I write. That's your question here's the goddamn answer don't make me use purple prose on an essay I'll kidnap your dog and dye his fur purple.

I used to be the same way. The way out is elaborating not on what, but on the why: the answer is short, but the explanation of why that's the answer and not something else can take quite a while.
- Exactly, that's always what they wanted it turned out. It's easy to say that 19th century Europe was reshaped by Napoleon, because he seized control of France from the fledgling republic and invaded all of Europe. But how did he do that, why is it different when Napoleon did it from when previous European powers invaded each other. Are there any other people or armies to compare him to, and how were they alike or different. What tactics did he use. What were the long term effects of all of this.
  This is the opportunity to not just say that you know the answer but to explain that you understand the context within which the question and answer reside. To demonstrate an understanding of the material. Sure some essays are bad essay questions, and I think some teachers really suck at explaining what they want out of an essay, but most of them just want that.
  History in particular really needs essays to be taught well because short answer, fill in the blanks, and multiple choice questions can struggle to test the understanding of the whole picture and can leave people thinking that Frederick the Great is just some king who was good at war in the mid 1700s and not a vital piece of a story that eventually results in two nuclear weapons being dropped on the Empire of Japan.

I'm concerned about children using AI slop machines instead of learning and practicing the fundamentals of written communication

I TOTALLY would have. I'm so glad that I didn't have the option - I wouldn't have understood or cared about the problem here. But there's no putting the genie back in the bottle now... How do we stop the mass stupification these tools will cause?
- How do we stop the mass stupification these tools will cause?
  Well, if I had the power to do anything about it...
  Probably smaller class sizes and better paid teachers. A teacher with ten students can pay more attention than one with thirty. And that means they can intervene more and better if a kid is trying to cheat, or doesn't understand, or isn't engaging

I'd easily write an essay with 600+ words if it was about my game of choice even back in my high school years. For school stuff, ugh, it often felt like they wanted you to drag on and on and on about something that could fit in a paragraph, or even a single sentence.

Well, then, if you can do that... then you can learn to identify when other doing that, using way too many words to say basically nothing.
The other idea here is to encourage you to think about things that you may not immediately find inteteresting.

Huh. I grew up with 500-word essays in high school. That was easy and a hundred words is basically nothing, though, so not much different.

there are sections of my application to become a licensed engineer that have a character limit of 1650

Character limits are the dumbest thing, how does "I can't properly express myself because I used proper punctuation" even make sense?

Sounds like more parents need to use "The Paper," as a preferred punishment.

It’s hard to write a good essay with that few of words.

Part of the actual answer:

Oh, well, some of us schooled before ChatGPT were also schooled before No Child Left Behind.

But I guess kids wouldn't know about that these days.

... for some reason.