A couple days ago I read something in an interview Madeline Buston, an agent who works with Lee Child, an author that I really enjoy. If you haven't read his stuff you should. It's always well crafted, detailed, and has great pace and solid action and his characters are somehow very believable. It's funny. The more I read his stuff and stuff from guys who I just can't believe are so great, i.e. Norman Mailer, John Steinbeck, these just genius level guys the more inadequate I feel, yet I feel driven to outperform them.
Nonetheless, I continue to write, continuing to perfect my brand of storytelling. My goal is to perfect the telling of a story in a fast paced yet substantive way. Madeline Buston had what I found to be at the time a great point, a great guideline for writing. She basically said that every story should be written in a five page arc with a mini-drama at the end of every five pages. Well, I seized on the point, looking to get my stories to move along like the adventure novels they should be. I'm finding however that it is more difficult than I anticipated. It really causes you, if you want to write suspense, adventure, and thrillers, to dispense with the flowery language and get down to the bone, clearly separating what is dispensable from what is not.
A piece that I worked on tonight had a part in it that had eleven pages between the last action and the present one. I sat and edited until I got it down to 7.5, cutting and cutting and cutting. In the writing, I give myself all the liberties I want. But in the editing, each word has a cost, each word slows down the action.
I must admit that the action moves a lot faster now and I am forced to make things happen if I want to keep pieces of the story. It's forcing me to ask the hard questions that must be asked of any really good action story, namely, what is this scene for? What is the purpose? What is happening? And is it dispensable? If there are no good answers to any of those questions it must go.
The writing is the easy part. It's on credit. The editing is when the bill must be paid.
Nonetheless, I continue to write, continuing to perfect my brand of storytelling. My goal is to perfect the telling of a story in a fast paced yet substantive way. Madeline Buston had what I found to be at the time a great point, a great guideline for writing. She basically said that every story should be written in a five page arc with a mini-drama at the end of every five pages. Well, I seized on the point, looking to get my stories to move along like the adventure novels they should be. I'm finding however that it is more difficult than I anticipated. It really causes you, if you want to write suspense, adventure, and thrillers, to dispense with the flowery language and get down to the bone, clearly separating what is dispensable from what is not.
A piece that I worked on tonight had a part in it that had eleven pages between the last action and the present one. I sat and edited until I got it down to 7.5, cutting and cutting and cutting. In the writing, I give myself all the liberties I want. But in the editing, each word has a cost, each word slows down the action.
I must admit that the action moves a lot faster now and I am forced to make things happen if I want to keep pieces of the story. It's forcing me to ask the hard questions that must be asked of any really good action story, namely, what is this scene for? What is the purpose? What is happening? And is it dispensable? If there are no good answers to any of those questions it must go.
The writing is the easy part. It's on credit. The editing is when the bill must be paid.
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