Not Getting Anywhere

My kids and I tell stories most nights before we get to bed. It's an exercise in off-the-cuff storytelling. The listeners are allowed to pick one item each (an animal, a straw, a pillow, a bar of soap, etc.), and then the storyteller creates a story with the items.

My kids do pretty well at using the items, yes, and we have a great time giggling. But as listeners, we often urge the storyteller to "get on with it." That's because the storyteller sometimes spends so much time on the mundane that the meaning of the story never happens.

I could claim my kids are just not cut out to be writers. But there's no way I'd say something so inane. This is not a fault of the young. We ALL do this. We tell a joke, but take so long with the detail that the punchline falls flat. We talk about our day, whining about all the little things people said or did, or the flat tire, so that by the time we're done our significant other is either asleep from boredom or his/her eyes are bleeding (sleep is preferable).

We don't want the story to lag, so just as we fill our speech with "uhs" and "ums" to fill in the pauses, we fill our writing with details that mean nothing, that add nothing, and that do nothing but distract us (as writers) from what is important.

I'm revising a novel now, and my number one job right now is to pare. If it doesn't add something to the characters, the drama, the point, the situation, it's going to get cut. I don't want the reader wondering when I'm really going to get to my point. I want it infiltrating the very first sentence of the novel, permeating every scene, every shred of dialogue, everything.

Be mean to your words. If they don't fit, they're out.