This week: Overabundant Description Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Overabundant Description
As a writer, I sometimes get carried away making my world visible to the reader. I can see the pretty and cool features of a land created in my head and want to share it all. Usually great for a novel, but a short story requires a more precise description and some careful edit. Description is good, when it is necessary. It's okay to let your readers use their imagination. When your characters are "traveling down a dusty and rocky road, nearing the wide slow-flowing river as it turns and heads south toward the city" and using more word count than they're allowed, it's time to trim to "traveling around the river bend". Many contests have a word count limit. What is the recipe for a balance between description and effective word count?
When trimming word count and unnecessary descriptions, think about your story line. Is the description of the scene or character important to moving the story forward? Is it necessary to give your reader a scene description? Is your character important enough to the plot to be fully described or is it a minor character who could be left flat? Do you have too many adverbs and adjectives sprinkled in your story? Too much seasoning can ruin the soup.
In the opposite turn, look at your work and see if any character or scene needs fleshing out. Your reader needs to know your character has six arms if he suddenly uses three weapons. Most readers will give a character a human form if not shown otherwise. What would be holding the third weapon? If he slid down the cliff, landing lightly on his feet, you'd need to explain the gravity differential on that planet, or your reader would stop and question your writing.
So, when editing your story, think about what is fat, what is lean, and then season where necessary. Write on!
This month's question: What tricks do you use to trim the fat?
Answer below  Editors love feedback! 
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#2095991 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Only a few cars were on the road. “I'm one of the crazy ones,” she muttered.
I happened to agree, but I kept silent as usual. Her car slipped and slid, and her heart jumped in her chest, but she continued driving. Thank goodness the church is not far away. No sooner were the words formed in her mind, than the tail end of the car suddenly went left. She stepped on the brake, and her car spun out of control.
Excerpt: Jack Conway glared at the snow encrusted steps leading from his stoop down to the snow encrusted sidewalk, then across the street to his car, already encrusted in snow pushed around the tires and up to the door by the early-morning plows. His daughter, Amy, poked her head around him and gave a gasp of delight.
"Let's make a snowman."
"Maybe later. Daddy's gotta go to work."
Excerpt: In the playground, my two colleagues are gathering the children into pairs. One child, however, stands on his own. I don’t recognise him, although, there is something about him I can’t quite put my finger on.
“Hey there, what’s your name?” I ask.
Excerpt: “What new kind of drone?” asked General Azazel.
“I don’t know, sir. The intelligence was about some kind of shadow drones,” the CIA deputy director told him.
“What the hell are shadow drones? Stealth? Everybody has stealth these days! Tell me something that’s actually intelligence or quit wasting my time,” said the General, annoyance creeping into his tone.
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#2208872 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Sloane was known as the resident lawman at the Peat Wheel pub. He was doing an apprenticeship at a nearby courthouse, so everybody assumed him to be knowledgable at law. Little did most people know, Sloane was the courthouse's dustman's apprentice. While he did occasionally overhear legal matters, he was nowhere near qualified to adjudicate anything. Still, he proudly took on the role. He wasn't good at law in the legal sense, but he was a damn good improviser. He'd spend every night at the Peat Wheel silently drinking in the corner. Whenever a conflict arose, he'd be the first one anyone would consult. Just as they did on this fateful Sunday evening.
"Hey, Sloane. McCormac just drank from Mrs. Brae's cup and she smacked him over the head with a cudgel. The two are about to go at it."
Sloane didn't recognize the patron talking to him, but he wasn't surprised to see that he was known to him. He stood up from his chair, leaving his pint half full on the table. He thanked the patron for letting him know of the event and approached McCormac and Mrs. Brae. He put his hands on his hips and cleared his throat before speaking.
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#2210031 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: He lies there, quiet. Peaceful. When the weather is nice, he often comes out here to watch the stars. On nights like this, he stays out, resting in the cooling sand. Sat on a rock nearby, I observe how individual strands of his hair move with the breeze. I try to be as unobtrusive as possible, as it would not do to disturb his slumber.
Why do you come here? I wonder, and it applies to us both. Why do I come here, when I have a duty to fulfil? Why does he sleep out in the open when he has the luxury of a secluded home?
Excerpt: The school in Dunblane had thee rooms and three teachers with four grades in each room. The principal had the senior room and taught all subjects to the four high school grades. All was going well until the end of my Grade Ten year when our principal joined the air force. The war was on and teachers were so scarce that the local school board could not find a replacement, so for the next year, the local educational facility was reduced by one-third. High school was suspended.
Excerpt: Frosty, the snow man stood high on the hill, looking down over the village. On this first day of December, he was tall and proud in his newly shaped body made of snow. Karen, his friend, had packed the glistening flakes together perfectly. He felt like a brand new man with his button nose and his eyes made of coal. He could almost smell the burning aroma of a zesty tobacco in the corncob pipe she had placed in his mouth. She had wrapped a black tweed scarf around his neck and fashioned the finest twigs for his arms. There was only one detail that Karen had forgotten, the hat. Without the magic in that old silk hat, Frosty was left to watch from the top of the hill, all of the others get to laugh and dance.
"Oh, Frosty, I am so sorry. I promise I will bring it right back. I know just where it is," Karen cried
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#2209730 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: I love animals. I would never hurt one intentionally. But peer pressure's a bitch sometimes. Alas, I agreed to go to a hunting cabin with the boys - the enticement of booze, poker, and laughs overruling my humanitarian arguments and objections.
I won't shoot anything, I kept saying on the long car-ride north through the growing snow-banks lining the icy roads.
If we're attacked by zombies, said Robert, you'll pull the trigger. A convincing argument I had to admit.
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This month's question: What tricks do you use to trim the fat?
Answer below Editors love feedback!
November's question: What keeps you on track and motivated??
Quick-Quill  replied: I too am a procrastinator to my husband's ire. I do the Nano Challenge because it keeps me motivated and accountable as of today(11/19 I'm 60% done
M. L. Cooke  revealed: The smell of peppermint, and a great idea.
EnterName5312 responded: I set goals for myself lets say do at least 2 pages a day so no matter how bad those 2 pages are, I complete them every day. I can always edit later.
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Action/Adventure: January 15, 2020 Issue [#9968]
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