Elswyk returns to her new home after a long day. She does a little work before getting something to eat and going to bed. She gets up in the morning, and then she goes to work. (She works in a book store.) She deals with customers all morning until her friend comes by to visit. They talk. Then the friend suggests that they go out to lunch. They do. Over lunch, they have a nice, long conversation.
I spent pages on this. I went into detail.
A couple important things do happen in the chapter. I do want to give a sense of what Elswyk's typical day is like. But I can imply a lot of it. I don’t have to go into painstaking detail about everything, such as…
I had a large pile of papers on my desk—about what I’d expected. I didn't look up until I had gotten through the pile. Tomorrow Basalt had meetings and other business matters that would take him out of the building, so I wasn't going to get to spend much time in the back office. An empty desk meant that I wouldn't have to stay here too late tomorrow night catching up on things.
I can cut that entire paragraph and much of the page it appeared on and the story will still make sense. A quick conversation between Basalt and Elswyk when she gets to work (which is already in the chapter) is enough.
Remember how I said the novel was 77,000 words? With chapters like these, I’m going to be down to 50,000 words in next to no time.
IMO, this is how every writers' mind works. To 'see' the character, location, or background, we must put down the words describing them for ourselves.
ReplyDeleteAs if you're looking through a window. You don't see the window frame, the bush just outside, or the trees. You see the car that is driving by on the road.
Yeah, true. But then those things must be cut in subsequent revisions...which I didn't do. Sigh.
DeleteI had a tendancy to do this sort of thing, too. For me it was often a getting from point A to point B kind of thing. How will they know what's going on if I don't tell them? Um, yeah, they'll figure it out.
ReplyDeleteAt least we fixed it, right? That's what revisions are for, after all. :)
At least, that's what this next revision is for.
DeleteI've found that it's very helpful to write down a sentence or two describing what the scene or chapter goal is before I start revising. Any words that don't support that goal gets cut. Once I started doing this, I found it much easier to drop passive paragraphs like this.
ReplyDeleteI've only just started doing that, and it is so helpful. Where were you when I worked on this the last time?
DeleteI would love to say that I don't do this at all - pssshh! Ha! Yeah, right. It's so easy to slip into sharing so many little details because we don't want the reader to miss a thing. But that is the beauty of CP's and beta readers. They can help with finding those "next stop on the subway" moments and tighten things up.
ReplyDeleteCPs and betas are the best. (I'm assuming. I hope to find some awesome ones...after I do this edit.)
Delete