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Basic Writing questions is not a crit forum. All crits belong in Share Your Work
what to leave out? what to write?
- Thread starter mdhight
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*Furiously taking notes on sound advice, eyes bloated novel drafts with renewed determination*
One way to do it would be to blend her internals (what she's thinking, and what she's experiencing emotionally) into a summary of the trip. You certainly don't detail the whole two-hour trip but you could write something in this vein:
And so on.
Or--you could show her emotional state just as she sets out, and then write something similar to: "Two hours later, she arrived at Rocktown, feeling, if not calm, at least numb."
The point is, either use the travel time to advance the plot and show something about her, or summarize it in a handful or words, or skip it altogether. At the end of one scene she leaves. At the beginning of the next scene, she has arrived. It's really that simple.
Summarize. Never be afraid to tell rather than show when all that's needed is a brief summary.
My favourite example of narrative summary from a writing technique book goes something like this....
My favourite example of narrative summary from a writing technique book goes something like this....
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Which people? And what does "needed" mean? For that matter, what the heck does "advance the story" mean? This term gets thrown around a lot, but just what does it mean? I've seldom, if ever, read a novel that needed a good bit of the description it contains, and there must be five hundred different kinds of readers who all like their novels written in different ways. As for "advancing the story" I suspect this is a nonsense term coined by a literary professor somewhere. It plays no part in much detail and description.
Elmore Leonard's advice is mostly good, but none of it is gospel, and not everyone likes his writing. Many readers skip his books completely, while grabbing on to novel with long, lush description and detail.
The way I look at it, you write only what is absolutely relevant to the story. I hate when I have to wade through pages and pages of description that is completely irrelevant to the story.
Relevancy may be in the eye of the beholder. Presumably the author thought it was relevant--if not directly, then in a tangential way.
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Write the interesting stuff -- that is, what on rereading your manuscript, you still find interesting. Readers with tastes similar to yours will also find it interesting. Readers with different tastes might not, but you are not writing for everyone; you're writing for your audience.
Transitional scenes can be interesting (all sorts of crap happens along the way and she almost doesn't get there) or compacted because nothing interesting happened (she speeds for two hours and arrives without significant mishap, per several examples above).
Transitional scenes can be interesting (all sorts of crap happens along the way and she almost doesn't get there) or compacted because nothing interesting happened (she speeds for two hours and arrives without significant mishap, per several examples above).
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You do, but that's why some people read genres that transport them to different places and times. They love that lush description that transports them to another place and time.
Some, not all, of course. That's why there's no writer who is universally loved or popular.
Good advice. Of course, most of the books I love are long fantasy epics with high word counts, and I've been told that agents and editors are leery of picking these up from new authors. So therein lies the rub. Figuring out how to get that lush feel without a high word count.
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Advancing the story and keeping it all relevant is something that usually becomes clear when you start editing, especially for those writers that do little planning and just let the story unfold as it goes.
And that is exactly what I do. I have never even used an outline for an essay so I havent ever tried to use one for a novel, but I do have a plan for what I want to happen.
I asked this question because everytime I post something everyone says it is to descriptive, but when I take stuff out it just doesnt seem like my writing anymore.
I am just trying to find a happy medium but it is alot harder than I thought.
King also said, "your final manuscript = your first draft - 10%."
Write it out, then cut out all the fluff. Cut out huge swathes all at once. Cut out everything unnecessary.
Do what Twain said: if you catch an adjective, kill it.
Write it out, then cut out all the fluff. Cut out huge swathes all at once. Cut out everything unnecessary.
Do what Twain said: if you catch an adjective, kill it.
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