How do you write your fiction? I
currently write detailed, building tone and atmosphere in pastel layers to
create a vibrant depth in which to seed information and incidents that echo
other parts of the story as it builds to a series of harvest points.
This
doesn’t happen over a single page, or even a couple; it needs space. But what
if there is only the single page? For an anthology submission I’ve been cutting
a Horror short story – 2,750 words – down to 666. Trying to write “up” to 666
words I found beyond me. When I was teaching, my mantra was... if a story is to be cut by more than 25%,
then it needs to be rewritten not edited.
Did
I follow my own advice? No. I excised, I trimmed, I amalgamated. It took seven
passes to get within ten words of the target. Only on the eighth pass did I
start rewriting, replacing word for word, to ensure that the atmosphere, the
tension, the building dread necessary to the genre, was present in the
quantities that would elicit the targeted reader reaction.
Did
it work? I’m told so, and I certainly feel that I’ve brought the story to
fruition. But it was my third story, so I still believe that not every concept
can be cut to the bone and survive intact. Would I like to take such a knife to
my current detailed writing? Emphatically no.
However, it’s a great exercise for opening a writer’s eyes and showing what is
possible. Give it a go.
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