Into the Fire

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Words. In or out?

June 12, 2012

In writing circles you will repeatedly hear, "If the word isn't necessary or doesn't contribute to the story, leave it out." That's laughable. Every novel would be reduced to Flash Fiction if that were the case. Or blurbs. Or back cover copy. Or reruns of Ernest Hemingway which would please some and alienate the rest of us.

Granted if authors were allowed to leave every word they wrote in stories, editors would be out of jobs. And readers would have to adapt to throwbacks of longer novels. War and Peace? Moby Dick? Hope of Glory? Ha!

I'm a fan of long novels. I love the details. Well-written long novels are the ultimate in reading pleasure. However, the not-so-new normal is short novels, and frankly not every author can do them well. Leaving words out under the guise they aren't "contributing" or aren't "necessary" to the story sometimes serves up skimpy novels with abrupt endings and shallow characters.

Your preference and thoughts?

Father, your variety in creation carries over in all things we do. Thank you for the amazing inspirations you give to your people. Apart from you, we can do nothing. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

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7 responses to “Words. In or out?”

BK Jackson

June 13, 2012

Well I was already a tiny minority because I don’t seek out romance novels of any genre. But the other disturbing trend to me is shorter fiction. Not every novel has to be a tome, but I resent the often repeated advice to make novels shorter these days–and you hear it everywhere.
More disturbing then all of that is the notion that we should contribute to people’s inattention. Seems to me we ought to be doing things to BUILD people’s attention, not make them worse.
My minority shrinks more and more every day. 😎

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Nicole

June 13, 2012

But our uniqueness remains – or grows, Brenda. 😉

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Brenda Anderson

June 13, 2012

The size of a novel doesn’t matter to me–if I’m enjoying the story, I’ll keep reading. I LOVE books that are rich with sensory details, immersing me in the scene, while other readers claim they skim descriptive passages. I think it’s part of our McDonalds’ “I want it now and fast culture”. Just think of all the flavors people are missing!

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Tim George

June 13, 2012

Which is strange for many reasons. The trend over the last 10 years has been toward longer feature films but shorter novels. Go figure!
On a more serious note; Ray Bradbury died recently and he was a fan of the English language. He believed in using every color in his palette to paint the fullest picture of the story he was seeking to paint.
So much of this cookie cutter advice is leading to cookie cutter fiction and all but ignoring the power of an author’s voice. A real shame.

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Nicole

June 13, 2012

Bren, I would agree that if you get a long novel and it isn’t done well: Ack! I’ve finally come to the point where if I don’t have to read a book (for review), long or short, I won’t. It took forever to get here. It’s story, baby. Too many others out there to read.
Tim, I agree with Mr. Bradbury’s philosophy. Every color, every sense. And I so emphatically agree the cookie cutter mentality is flourishing. It’s truly a shame.

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dayle

June 13, 2012

Nicole, I think much of agent’s and editor’s advice is a reponse to their current slush pile. If they see script after script that needs to be distilled down from 300k to 100k, they give overreaching advice to counter that.
Kind of like in golf. There’s tons of advice for amateurs and there are clubs and balls made for “amateurs”. This advice and equipment is designed for swing speeds from 75 to 90 mph. The problem is many amateurs like myself have much higher swing speeds. My swing speed of 116mph is in the pro range. So I have to ignore the advice for amateurs even though I am one.
I would speculate (without evidence) that most long manuscripts are fluffed. The ones that are not fluffed should be long, except for the fact that market forces(real or percieved) lead editors to decide that new writers (except for Rowling of course), can’t get away with it.

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Nicole

June 13, 2012

Good analysis and comment, Dayle. A lot of wisdom in there. I know this: when I’ve had to cram to read several books in a row for review (because they arrived late), and I like a couple of them but must force myself through the others, I might wish they were 60K instead of 80K. However, I think the same principles apply to writing longer novels as far as content being poignant, characters that allow us to see them from every dimension, and circumstances which incite us to look deeper into the lives and stories of those involved. And, yes, most present day editors without powerful influence will decide against “new” writers with long manuscripts. And very probably the majority of those will contain “fluff” unless they’ve written several other novels waiting to be published and have some good experience under their writing belts.

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