I've mentioned Edgar Allan Poe a few times lately. I'm reading his stuff and it's taking ages because I keep going over the long and elaborate sentences and imagining them as they might be if they were more modern and more brief.
It isn't just EAP who gets this treatment. I recently wrote a story that was rejected by a magazine editor. When I came to look at it again I decided it could be made shorter. I got it from 2000 words to 1000! Not something to be proud of. What twaddle had I written that wasn't missed after a hefty edit?
Do it now. Get one of your stories and see if you can remove 20% of the content without changing the story. It makes you resourceful. Maybe you could remove more. Always a good thing to put stuff away for a while and come back to it with a view to reducing it to make it powerful and tight.
If all your stories are edited, try looking at Poe and see what you come up with when you reduce his sentences.
Random picture of me at a storytelling event.
It isn't just EAP who gets this treatment. I recently wrote a story that was rejected by a magazine editor. When I came to look at it again I decided it could be made shorter. I got it from 2000 words to 1000! Not something to be proud of. What twaddle had I written that wasn't missed after a hefty edit?
Do it now. Get one of your stories and see if you can remove 20% of the content without changing the story. It makes you resourceful. Maybe you could remove more. Always a good thing to put stuff away for a while and come back to it with a view to reducing it to make it powerful and tight.
If all your stories are edited, try looking at Poe and see what you come up with when you reduce his sentences.
Random picture of me at a storytelling event.
No comments:
Post a Comment