A Sketch Ain’t Worth a Thousand Words

[scribblemyname]

So I just remembered/realized why I love writing flash fiction and have such a hard time getting it to pass muster with my awesome, wonderful, incredibly stick-me-to-it beta: I write sparse. Always have; probably always will. Oh, joy.

In short, I’m one of those odd and rare writers that sketches in a story and, if I’m wise enough to not consider it done, fill it in later. This usually takes a lot of filling and it’s a pain in the butt and I’m often bored with the exercise long before the exercise is bored with me. Cue beta shipping it back to me with a note telling me to “Bake it longer, chica.” :headdesk:

This is also probably where my major problem with novel-writing is coming from, and it certainly stems from all my time mucking around in fandom where I can play off a certain set of standard assumptions. I’ll be the first to admit (in fact, I already did somewhere) that “Crossing the Barrier” could have been deepened quite a bit. I was nowhere near ready to tackle that kind of work though, didn’t have enough interest in the story left to want to, and knew that the story worked without it. So I didn’t. It probably would have been good practice.

What about you? Do you write long or short? Do you have to layer in details later or trim the fat?

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[pygmymuse.livejournal.com]

I find I write long. A couple of recent things came in under fifty thousand words and made me blink in confusion because the plot seemed done, but the length surprised me.

Fanfiction was a bad influence on me, too, in the terms of description. I have a story where I described everything and had clear and perfect detail. I started to skimp on it more and more as I spent longer in fanfiction, and I've only recently been getting that swing back again.

I have rarely been told to cut anything. Because my main love is by-play between characters (usually dialogue), I am weaker at description. I also let the characters tell the story, so the pace can get ahead of all that's going on. So I usually have to go back and fix things. I find that I enjoy editing in layers, going back and adding a bit as I read it over. I find it's a good way to get back into stories I've let sit for a while, to reestablish myself in the world and find the characters' voices.

[scribblemyname]

I got a lot of good things out of fanfiction too, but the primary problem is it only exacerbated my tendency to sketch, since I didn't HAVE to fill things in any more. Ugh. One bad habit to break. Working on the swing, but so far, I'm not impressed with myself.

I've never been told to cut anything really; my sister's always reminding me that allowing a few filler words makes the reading experience a lot easier.

I think I'm going try your editing approach. That's something I've never done much of, but it looks like it's a skill I could stand to learn. :shakes head ruefully at self: