Rule 17 Writing Question

[prisoner_24601]

Since I'm always curious about other people's creative process and how they write, I thought I'd ask the other fic writers on this community how much editing and trimming do you do to your work? Do you edit and trim at all? Write a first draft and then are finished? How much of your stuff ends up on the figurative cutting room floor? I'm wondering if other writers love to edit and pick at stuff the way I do or if they have an entirely different way of writing.

I know that for me, I'm a huge fan of Strunk & White's Rule 17 (Omit needless words) and that most of the time, I tend to do as much work editing, trimming and cutting my fics as I do on the actual first draft. And I've definitely had stories where my betas (or myself) have chopped huge parts out and trimmed the dialogue, etc... to pick up the pacing and the rhythm of the fic, and always my stories seem better for it.

So tell me your creative process because I'd love to know!

Comments

[prisoner_24601]

You know, there's no real science when it comes to length. Some stories can be done in really short lengths, some can't. You're writing something that takes a lot of characters with a pretty complex political plot. That's just going to take a hell of a lot more words to write than "batman!Tabris is the avenger of Denerim." So it really depends on the type of story that you're writing. Like look at the difference between someone like George RR Martin who's got a ton of characters and this huge plot and Lois Bujold who writes 80k novels that sort of tie together and still stand alone. One's not right or wrong - they're just writing different types of stories.

Although I will say, while I love George, I think that he could use some trimming himself and a long talk with an editor on how to tighten his story and focus it more (especially with introducing new characters - he needs to kill some off before he makes more). But even if he did that, his story would still be huge anyway because that's the type of story he's writing.

And you know, you've made it pretty far and seem to have a lot of natural talent. I mean, it sort of blows me away that this is your first attempt at writing fiction. You've managed 200k which is a hell of a lot more on one fic than I've ever been able to write (and it's an original plot too, and not playing off a game retelling, which is a lot trickier, I think). So even if your ending disappoints some people, the fact that you made it this far and entertained them that long is pretty amazing, especially for a first attempt.

[scarylady]

Thank you for that. I got a lot of positive reviews, but sometimes it helps more just to hear someone say 'hang on, you're doing well, alright?'

The story length thing is because, like quite a few of us I suspect, I'd one day like to write original fiction. As I understand it, most publishers look for 80k-100k (120k absolute tops, and it'd better be really brilliant) for a novel length. The reason being that the number of pages defines the publishing costs and for a new writer they won't extend themselves any more than they have to. The slimmer the volume, the less they have to think about whether to go for it or not.

When I started this, I felt it was a fairly simple plot. There are no side-plots to speak of, just char dev. 200k and rising! 'kin hell. I've got no chance of coming in at 80k with anything like a decent plot. And I'm not particularly verbose either. My plot moves along at a fair clip.

I know I've got a lot to learn; I'm just not sure right now what the lesson is, y'know?

[niniane]

Yeah. Well, and original fic gets annoying because there really is a market for 1.5-5K fic (short stories) and 80-120K fic (novels). And not much for longer or mid-length (or super short) stuff.

So to a real extent you do have to sort of work your "grand vision" into something that's of sell-able length (if you want to sell), which may mean trimming characters and sub plots that are less valuable, or padding it out if you write short stuff (like I do). It's kind of irritating either way.

A kind of sad RW example is Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress, which is one of my favs. It was written as a ~50K novella and is excellent at that length (won a Nebula and all, so I'm not the only one who is all <3!!!!!). But to publish it for more readers, she had to more than double its size. The result wasn't bad...but it wasn't as good as the novella which was a much stronger work. She's claimed that she prefers the novella format, and complains about having to pad out novels to sell them...so you're not alone in being driven crazy by market demands! (And you can almost see the padding in some of her novels!)

[prisoner_24601]

Yeah, it seems like only big name authors can get away with novellas and even then they tend to get bound in collections (like Stephen King's - Different Seasons) which is such a shame. I think a lot more published novels would be a lot better at that length.

But, you know, it's not just a problem with written fiction but with all types of commercial story telling. Movies run into this sort of problem too, where you'll be watching a movie and think - goddamn, if they just cut like 30 minutes out of this, it would be fantastic, but now I'm irritated and bored because I'm watching filler. Same thing with TV series (especially with the 22 episode format) where there are a few episodes a season of a really good show where everyone derps around because the writers are padding.

[niniane]

Yeah. With TV, I can understand. You need 22 minutes. Advertisers need their time, it must fit in the slot, fine.

That same attitude for writing drives me crazy, though. Like...honestly, I'd pay the same for a novella as a novel (or maybe slightly less, whatever). And I'd prefer it to the awful filler that you can see some authors using.

I can see, though, why no one would want to risk having to publish multiple novels by an unknown author. (Which is kind of what publishing a 300K word fic would be, as you'd need at least 2 books to cover that many words). That said, well known authors can get away with it as they can sell series. Although even then, they need to keep their story arcs in a novel sized range...

Then again, from what I've been told, new authors are almost never published in anything other than the short story format. Which is kind of sad. *sigh* Makes me think that I ought to work on my 1.5-5K word fic...

[prisoner_24601]

Heh, you're welcome.

You know there are a lot of ways around these sorts of problems. Editing and trimming stuff out is one thing that can be done (especially by someone who does it for a living - it's pretty amazing what they can do to trim a fic), but even then you might not hit the magic number mark of 80k because there may not be a bunch of fat on your story. Some pro authors I've read about side step the problem by breaking their story up into two or more books.

I remember reading an interview by Lois Bujold (who is one of my all time favorite authors ever) and she had the exact problem of her first story that just kept on going, so she found a mid point and put an ending on the book and then started up the follow up novel in a way that it could stand alone, but still be a continuation of the first.

There are a lot of really great books and resources out there about how to hit that magic number mark because it is a problem that a lot of authors face. But yeah, it's probably damned frustrating to try and shoehorn a story into the arbitrary length. Although maybe this will change with e-publishing and nooks and stuff?