Going Dutch

One of my challenges with writing is that I tend to be verbose. This works in my favor when doing NaNoWriMo, but that's about it. If allowed, I will constantly edit my work in search of the perfect phrasing. It's becoming a sickness, and I blame Norman Maclean and Elmore Leonard.

Norman Maclean is best known for his novella (and the subsequent movie) "A River Runs Through It." In both, the writer reminisces how, as a child, he would give his homework to his father to correct. The elder Maclean would make grammatical corrections, and hand the paper back to the son and admonish him to rewrite it, at half the length. This would be repeated, over and over again, until Norman achieved perfect brevity. The idea of so brutally editing yourself (by at least half every time!) is both appalling, and appealing to me. In practice, I can't do it very well, but I do make the effort.

I can't say anything new about Elmore Leonard; any fan will already know my pain. I am completely in awe of, and intimidated by, his writing. In his books, the plot is a vehicle for the characters, and his characters are second only to his dialogue and pacing. Everyone should read him, and often.

Leonard very famously wrote in his "10 Rules of Writing" to leave out the parts that people skip. I've been trying to keep that in the forefront of my mind these days, and I do think it helps. Going over some of my recent writing, I pulled out the mental red pen, prepared to do some Maclean-style editing, and was pleased to find that there was not a whole lot of stuff that I would skip as a reader. But, since I had my Maclean hat on, I ruthlessly did strikethroughs on everything I thought I could safely excise. I went back a couple of days later to re-read for clarity, and ending saving more than I thought I would, and editing out far less than I originally marked. I feel really good about the progress, and that I'm still keeping my characters and pacing on track without sacrificing plot. My word count may not be where I'd like it to be, but my story is where it needs to be, and that's the important thing.