I am finding myself doing a lot of "deep focus" edits in some places. Darthaniel's writing is wonderful, but as with everything in this modern age, there is just so much of wonderful we can take. So I am editing out everything wonderful and just leaving the incredible.
Nowadays, we can write. Oh wow, can we write. We have speed typing, text-to-speech, and we can generate text at such a pace we could out write an entire generation in an afternoon. We have tools that can spell check entire volumes of work in seconds, grammar check, and make sure every bulk word written as if it were bought wholesale in a Costco is absolutely perfect.
But again, this is our problem. I can buy a twelve pack of muffins that have something like four servings to each muffin, but I can't eat them all. The mere fact of eating them all produces a negative experience that I feel like I am either stuffed or wasting food. I can always parse them out by freezing them and eating them for a month, but that has another negative experience in that I get tired of them.
There's so many muffins I don't feel they are wonderful anymore, even though if I just had one, it would be all the wonderful I wanted.
I saw an article in my favorite writing magazine, The Writer yesterday where a writer discussed her experiences with a short story she submitted to a publication that was 1,600
words when she submitted it, and a senior and experienced editor helped her edit it down to 800 words. This story turned out to be one of her signature works, and she discussed the editing process with the magazine.We are trained at an early age that overconsumption is a good thing. Scrooge McDuck dives into his roomful of gold coins and we envy him. Donald Duck with his three sons and comfortable wage probably has a happier life. We look at a fantasy novel with 1,200 pages and think it is 50% better than one with 800 pages. We write 6,000 words in a day and we are happy and feel we are closer to being done.
In reality, only half of those words are truly incredible and should stay.
It is one of the most humbling things to accept as a writer. Only half of your words are incredible, and the rest need to go so your book can be incredible too. It is impossible to be selective and only write 100% incredible words, so we must cut the fat and toss out half of our work with every book.
And this fact never changes, even if you could write 100% incredible words, you would be throwing out half of those and keeping the amazing ones.
If your word count does not substantially shrink when you edit, you are not editing, and you are not doing the reader a good service by just checking what's there for correctness. You need to be asking, "Should these words even be here at all?"
An example, in Darthaniel's book we have a wonderful section where two characters meet, get in a car, and get ready to go out to a restaurant. The dialog between them is great, and it sets the scene perfectly. After that, we then have another 800 words spent getting to the restaurant in backstory and future story setup during the drive. They are great words, and it's not his fault because I often do the same thing with long transitions.
I want them in that restaurant where the next major plot point happens. Right now. Right after that 'meeting each other' dialog. It has to have that 'sharp cut' to the next scene in my mind. So we are reworking this part and getting that transition tight. Words will be cut. Important information will be moved off until the point which it is needed. The story will end up shorter.
But better.
When you see it as a reader, the flow will be: characters meet with some very sharp dialog, and they go out together and the plot point hits. Good stuff. You won't have to wait for it. It will be paced as it should be and not feel rushed, but mentally the beat of the story will happen at the pace you expect.
It will be less wonderful, and more incredible.
No comments:
Post a Comment