Greetings all and first up let me issue some gratitude. Without further ado a drum roll please for Anna, Shilpa, Jo, Kat, Sarah and Devilline(Twitter) for stopping by and furnishing my latest post with loves, likes, shares, loves and comments. Also a huge thank you to those who prefer to stay silent. Each of your fabulous readers are much appreciated.
I will turn my attention now towards my rather large energy vampire short story which is coming in at just under 5000 words. This leaves me with around 1000 to go and I may well go over the 6000 word limit which is perfectly fine. Why is it fine? I can well understand your concern but it's quite usual to overwrite in the first draft for in the second draft we get those word cutters out and trim away all the excess, all the flabby writing and all those lazy bits that need work.
Here's an example of where I could improve a piece of writing that's a bit flabby and well kind of bland and irritating to be honest with you :
"There was a sandwich and John was really hungry. It was heavily raining outside and he felt so sad. A false smile wandered onto his face like a pelican looking for a smelly fish. A smile came his way from Joanne because she felt really sorry for him."
Oh lord, stop already. As you can see the paragraph above is pretty much as bad as it gets. We've got passive writing, the dreaded was and felt syndrome and a virus of inane smiles. Then we have a potty wandering pelican and it was raining outside. Well, unless there's a great hole in the roof it's unlikely to be raining inside is it? Oh and there's those ghastly adverbs...like the one I've just used there! Can we repair it? I don't know about that.
"John hadn't eaten since last night. He didn't much go for turkey sandwiches yet the hole in his tummy gaped ever wider. Besides, a bit comfort food might him forget. He ignored the rain though the tears in his heart reflected the gloom above. Jo hailed him with her usual annoying cheerfulness. He responded with a cloudy approval."
I think you'll agree it's quite an improvement and no doubt there's still more I could do. The cloudy approval doesn't ring true to me but I'd like a reflection of the weather above, so I could work on that a bit more. The tears in his heart might be straying into cliché but it's a massive improvement on the toot I put out before.
This is the thing with writing, your first draft is the dumping of words. Imagine if you will a great JCB rolling along and foisting these great mounds of verbs, adverbs, descriptions,
sentences, speeeling erars, w r on g spacing and so forth. I haven't even mentioned dire conditions such as elipsemotosis... and exclaimitus either! In this stage we're not worried about those mistakes, the point is we type and type and type until there's a piece of something for us to uncover.
Your second draft is where the real work begins and don't be surprised if there's several more that follow. Let's envisage that I send this tale off and then it comes back. I've a choice, just resubmit or look again with fresh eyes. Time to be uber critical, imagine myself being an editor and finding all those pieces of muck and grime compelling me to hit the reject button. Ultimately though what truly matters is the story. There's no point of having the most wonderful eye dropping word candy if the tale is merely going out to catch a bus to work. Now, if whilst walking to the bus he stumbles across a portal into the Nth dimension of Aaab built by inebriated fairies we might have something or maybe not.
Well, there we are. That's the fate that awaits me when I get down to the editing process and it's a mucky affair but so worth it when you see the finished article. I will ponder my own advice as I ready myself for my writers group this evening. They're all a talented bunch and some I've known for quite a while and have written a book or two. I look forward to hearing their words and no doubt our pens will flow with creative ink.
Until next I type. Adieu and keep reading.
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