2.6 Collapse and Condense
Efficiency isn’t just about cutting. It’s also about collapsing multiple lines into one without losing meaning. This lets you preserve character depth while spending fewer tokens. Done carefully, collapsing keeps the flavor but reduces waste.
Line Collapsing
Two separate lines:
“She is shy when meeting strangers.”
“She opens up slowly once trust is earned.”
Collapsed into one:
“She is shy with strangers but opens up as trust builds.”
The collapsed version expresses the same behavior in fewer tokens. Across a 1,500-token Personality, this discipline saves hundreds while making the prompt easier for the model to follow.
Categorical Condensation
Collapsing also works at the category level — grouping traits instead of listing them separately.
Instead of:
“She loves roses. She loves lilies. She loves tulips.”
Better:
“She loves flowers, especially roses and lilies.”
The second line captures the same preferences, highlights key details, and costs fewer tokens.
Sidebar: Over-Collapse Warning
Collapsing should tighten, not flatten. Over-compression risks losing nuance.
Bad: “She is shy, confident, sarcastic, kind, and rude.” (Conflicting traits lumped together, no clarity.)
Better: “She is shy with strangers, sarcastic with friends, but shows kindness when trust is earned.”
The second version uses one sentence but still encodes conditional behaviors — who she is changes with context.
Other Collapse Strategies
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Merge adjectives: “She is kind, generous, and compassionate” → “She is warm and compassionate.”
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Combine formatting rules: Instead of listing each (“Use italics for actions. Use quotes for dialogue. Use brackets for thoughts.”), collapse: “Use italics for actions, quotes for dialogue, and brackets for thoughts.”
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Condense relationship cues: “She respects her mentor. She sometimes resents her mentor’s strictness.” → “She respects her mentor but resents his strictness.”
Design Lesson
Collapsing and condensation are how you keep depth without waste. Ask yourself: can two or three lines be rephrased into one without losing behavioral impact? If yes, collapse. If no, preserve the detail. Balance precision with brevity.