Attached Link: Wrtier's Diegest

From the 2004 edition of "Novel & Short Story Writer's Market," author I.J. Schecter offers this advice for cutting excess words from your manuscript: "Writers love wordsit's one of our occupational hazards. Consequently, when a first draft comes rushing out of us, it invariably contains too many of them. It's your job to go through the manuscript and identify the excess that requires scooping. To do this, monitor your own response to the rhythms of your sentences and paragraphs. You'll know when a sentence is too lengthy if, by the end, you felt as if you were listening to someone share an anecdote that dragged on too long. "Imagine yourself an archer. Your target, as you review each sentence, is the point you want that sentence to make, and your aim is to hit that target without veering off course, even a little. Whether the target is 10 feet away or a hundred, your arrow mustn't waiver. Extra words in your sentence are like a breeze making the arrow flutter. So don't attack your manuscript with the idea that no sentence can exceed a certain number of words. Focus instead on the notion of each sentence flying straight toward that bull's-eye."

Ooops...I really can spell "digest." Really.

I had enough of that from previous challenges..;)I wrote some nice 4,000 word stories I had to cut 3,000 words out of..;) but it does 'concentrate the mind wonderfully'..;) btw, I've seen your gallery, Dialyn..don't try to fool us about art..;)

I don't mind if I fool other people; I'm just not going to try to fool myself. :D

"Je N'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parceque je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte." -- Pascal ("I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.") found on: palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/exlibris/2003/07/msg00105.html

Yeah, but I object strongly to the "invariably" in the original quote because it happens not to be true. I know lots of writers, even published ones, who underwrite the first draft. Personally, I tend to leave out descriptions on the first pass, and so on the second pass when I take out the excess words, I also add descriptions, and the end result tends to be about the same length as the first draft. This isn't to say that learning to "omit needless words" isn't a good idea, just that it isn't always what is needed.

It depends on what is needed. A lot of times people go overboard with description that readers don't care about because the authors fall in love with the sound of their own typing. Marshall Evans, former editor/agent/ author writes this in his book Getting Your Novel Published: "As with describing places, tell us how something looks only if it's something we haven't seen before or if it's something whose appearance we would have no way of knowing." He also suggests breaking up background and descriptions into smaller pieces rather than having paragraph after paragraph of solid text. When you describe something, you draw attention to it, and that sets up the expectation in the reader that there is something important about it. It frustrates the reader to read two pages of description only to find the description is about a place of no importance to the story. Make the descrpiton special. "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." Anton Chekov There is another famous quote of Anton Chekov that says that if you have a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, you better have it go off by the third. The point is, nothing should be in your story that doesn't serve some purpose. The thing is that some readers like slow, drawn out descriptions of things. Other readers like stories that are quickly paced and move along. You need to know your audience. Of course if you are only writing for yourself, no rule applies because you only need to please yourself. And there are few rules that can't be broken by skilled or experienced writers. And there's nothing wrong with that. I have to say, however, I think the number of people who have too little in their first draft are a somewhat smaller group than those who write too much. Maybe that's just my personal experience as a verbose person. ;)

Marshall Evans is indeed a former editor, but he is current an agent and an author. I didn't express that very well.

"currently" not "current"

I quit for the morning. The brain is obviously not in gear.

Proof before post. Proof before post. Proof before post.

Poof before Prost! Sorry, couldn't resist.

As long as you leave out the "invariably" I'm happy. :) I think maybe underwriters are less common than overwriters, but I've certainly run into both. And even with underwritten prose, just about every writer has a list of little weasley words that sneak in there when they aren't looking. "Well" is top of my list. Just because I overuse it, doesn't mean my characters will all talk like that. Bleh! I usually end out taking out at least two or three per page.