Say Less Than You Want

In my entry, Keep your Comments to Yourself, I ended it by saying, "If you want to be the best writer you can, then learn to say less than you want to. " I feel like that is not so much an ending as it is a beginning to a whole new subject.

When you create, you usually create in detail. Even if you don't see finely-rendered images in your head, you still know ore about your worlds and your characters than anybody else does. You also know more than anybody needs to know about them. The natural instinct is to tell as much as you know. This increases drastically if you are creating as you write. What I mean is, if you are writing your story, and you come up wit a thought or you have a realization that can be added to the story, you will likely put those thoughts down as they come to you.

And you know what? You should. If you don't write down your ideas, you will likely lose them. However, you also have to realize that most of the stuff you write is unnecessary. And after you finish your first draft, you have to slash it out. If you don't, then you probably have inferior writing that wastes a bunch of words?

"But Kevin," I hear the doubters saying, "what if I want to give a lot of information? What if giving lots of information is my style?" Well, doubters, that would be your problem. If people aren't responding to your style, then you may want to consider changing it. If they do like your work, then why are you looking for advice? My problem with excessive information, aside from being a chore to read, is that it leads to the problem of novels that don't get interesting until after the first hundred pages.

If you aren't interesting right away, don't expect readers to stick around and wait for you to get to the point. If you want people to be interested in what you have to say, then say less than you wanted.