I wanted to get back to the fantastic comments on my last post before now, but we have been quite the social butterflies the last couple of days. So I will give it a go while Hannah is off at a friend’s and the laundry is running itself.

Kee said:
“It gave a good hint to look at things scene by scene. Convey what you want about your character in relation to that scene. Save the rest as the story progresses and your character does too.”

I think this is good advice. I am still trying to decide if it pertains to short stories and novels equally. In a short story, you don’t have so much space for gradually introducing a character, but then again, you also don’t have so much space for him to change in (time-wise).

I think in my Godred story, Godred is going to realize/find out something he didn’t previously know, and this is going to be a major catalyst for him. It’s kind of a light-switch moment, but the reader needs to be able to follow the change from Godred before the “aha!” and Godred after it. Without me beating them over the head with it. Since I only have 4-5 scenes to work with, I have really got to fit a lot in there. *ponders*

Then WesTexGirl said:
“Because poetry is all about saying as much as possible in as few words as possible, tightening and making every word count was paramount to what we were trying to accomplish.”

I’ve always thought poetry was very similar to short stories in this respect. Every word has to pull its own weight, has to be able to defend its right to be there. Unfortunately, too many of my words are still flabby. *g* But writing is a bit like being a drill sergeant: you keep working those words until they shape up.

They say, “Kill your darlings”, meaning that even your favorite bits of your own writing have to be able to withstand careful scrutiny as to their contribution to your work. If they don’t pull their weight, out they go. I am one of the least sentimental people you are going to meet, and I regularly slash and burn as I go, but sometimes I wonder if I’m not chucking the baby out with the bathwater. But there’s something really satisfying about shredding the crap results. You just can’t look back, is all.