When I have the time, and sufficient inclination, I can write a short story in a week. After the first edit, if I’m pleased to find the story sounds pretty good, I leave it alone for awhile.
While the new story rests, I send it to an old college friend (actually, we’re both old). This friend isn’t a writer—however, she is a devoted reader. Fiction or nonfiction, she lives to read, which makes her an ideal target for reviewing my new stories and articles. She gets back to me within a week to say she really likes the sci-fi tale about some guys stranded on Phobos and she wants to know when it’ll be published.
As usual, I remind her that I have a process, which requires the fledgling space drama to languish in a dark corner of my disk drive for awhile, along with other stories not ready for prime time.
Weeks later, I resurrect the story to initiate my revision process; namely, that of combating wordiness. During this time, I’m not changing my main characters or adding new ones or fattening my scenery descriptions. Instead, I’m focusing on compressing my writing by questioning each phrase and clause. It’s like tightening the bolts on a hinge: I force my sentences to be as tight as possible by eliminating unnecessary slack.
By tightening, I don’t mean to suggest there’s anything wrong with long sentences. Like most readers, I enjoy reading pages that contain a mixture of sentence lengths. For me, tightening means making sure my sentences flow well, which certainly helps keep the reader’s interest.
My tightening process comes in steps, not meant to be in a particular order.
First – Make certain the story contains no instances of “there is” or “there are” etc., especially as a sentence opener. These passive phrases always lead to wordiness.
Second – Question prepositional phrases. Often, the right word (usually a verb or adjective) can easily replace a wordy prepositional phrase. My edition of the Chicago Manual of Style recommends no more than one prepositional phrase for every 10 to 15 words. Checking the use of prepositional phrases can take some time, but the story’s worth it.
Third – Reduce instances of “that.” Even though the word “that” isn’t necessary most of the time, it’s certainly used a lot – especially by speakers. They might believe it adds emphasis to what they’re saying, but it doesn’t work that way in writing. Although I try to use the word sparingly in my prose, I still review my sentences once again.
Fourth – Scrutinize every use of the word “and.” Except when “and” is used in a series, it can often be replaced with a conjunction like “however” or “while” or “besides.” Replacing “and” with transitions and conjunctions can increase the flow of the sentence, while using “and” generally does not.
Sixth – Eliminate redundancy. This is more often a problem in nonfiction, but it affects fiction too. Most redundancy errors result from using words or phrases that mean the same thing within a sentence, like: postpone until later. The phrase is redundant because postponing already means to reschedule at a later time. In a novel, redundancy can also mean mentioning something on page 31 that was already mentioned on page 16. This can insult the reader. A best-selling author, whose books I read for decades, is guilty of doing this in every novel, which has led me to believe he might think readers aren’t smart enough to “get” it the first time.
Fifth – Watch the use of “the” because it’s often unnecessary.
Even after I think my story is finished and edited – ready to go – I resist the urge to tighten it again. Tight writing provides a better reading experience for the audience, even if we may have to excise some darlings in the process.
Write on!
Ann
