Something I've noticed that I struggle with is the brevity of my writing. I tend to dance around the point a lot and include unnecessary or badly chosen details. There ends up being more fluff and filler than there is actual plot. Because of that, I always feel like my chapters don't have anything happening in them even though they're a decent length. The problem is I don't know how to cut down on this. Do you guys have any advice for knowing which details to cut loose or just being better at getting to the point in general? Or is it something you just have to practice? Thanks.
Overwriting is extremely common. I know that's not your only problem, as plotting seems to be an issue to from what you've mentioned, but I find it best to take on one issue at a time. I have a few resources up here that helped me with overwriting. I'm sure someone else will pick you up on the plotting issue. For overwriting issues: https://www.writingforums.org/resources/two-signs-of-overwriting-and-why-its-a-problem.429/ https://www.writingforums.org/resources/12-tips-to-avoid-overwriting.424/ For putting together whether scenes or summaries are necessary and when to use them: https://www.writingforums.org/resources/summary-and-scene-in-fiction-writing.428/
Just go through each sentence and cut out as many words as you can while still getting the idea across.
My answer that doesn't really feel like an answer, what details don't belong or move the story forward? If your protagonist is a buxom blonde with eyes of sapphire blue who always wears silk pajamas to bed, those details are fine. But they're out of place if she's in her work office. We don't need to know about her pajama preferences as she's presenting a PowerPoint to her boss. This is the kind of place personality description would come in handy. Describing setting is another .... Place where we can run overboard a bit. There's setting the scene, and then there's setting the scene. The balance is trickier here, I feel, because we want to give our readers an accurate visual, but we don't want to shove it into their faces. Unless there's a point to doing that. Example: in the Game of Thrones series, George R R Martin almost over-describes the food in the Red Keep in the beginning, going down to the last persimmon with detail. At first glance, this feels unnecessary, but as the books progress, the quality of the food and quantity decreases with the approaching winter and the wars happening literally everywhere. The food follows the crisis, so to speak. I feel like I just rambled for a bit, but I hope this helps?
When I slim down a sentence, I do a few steps. Reduce the line to a kernel sentence. Look at the deleted phrases and determine Which carry necessary detail and must stay Which are there to bind the sentence and might stay Which add nothing and must go Which are awful and must go Which are guilty of meaningless repetition and must go Here’s an atrocity from a book written by a mentally ill hack. (No offense to the institutionalized, but writing like this should be reported to The Hague.) Summer watched as the old coupe reluctantly obeyed the steering wheel and turned around. She kept watching until they were out of sight and then lifted her backpack from the ground, slung it over her shoulder, and turned away from the winding road, pausing as her senses become momentarily overwhelmed by the sounds and smells and life of the mountain. I think this is the third and fourth lines from the story (hence, "they," somewhat unexplained here.) It's also funny that there's a grammar error in the first paragraph (become --> became). Pitiful. Breaking the complex/compound sentences into multiple pieces leaves: Summer watched. The coupe turned. She watched. They were gone. She turned away. Her senses were overwhelmed. Spoiler: Good lord, I typed too much. The point is, reduce to kernel sentences and then build up with meaning. I’ll throw out the junk first. A character looking, gazing, seeing, etc. is almost always filler. It’s seldom important. The POV already explains that what is looked at is seen by the character. Sometimes it’s a useful trick for moving from the character to setting, but here, it’s just phrasal styrofoam. “Turns” are also often useless. They’re an easy way to drop back to the character with action, and they do happen, but this author just used two of them. The car (weirdly personified) turned, and then the MC echoed the action. The only reason the MC “turned” was because the author had that action in his head from the last sentence and thought it was a new idea. I’ll keep the first one because the action has some meaning there. The coupe turned. They were gone. Summer’s senses were overwhelmed. Then add back in only the parts that add meaningful detail. There are so many stupid parts in the original. The reader doesn’t need to be told that steering wheels turn cars, that backpacks that have been set down are resting on the ground, that a backpack is lifted before it is worn, that a person pauses when she is overwhelmed, or any of the other padding that was added for word count. I have to add a little detail too. The original didn't have much. Its forest was filled with abstract nouns that don't really exist. The old coupe turned back to the rutted camp road and was soon lost in the trees. Summer slung her backpack over her shoulder. Her senses were overwhelmed. And of course that’s still dead on the page, but the original was too. If this was just a functional section, I would stop there (probably expanding that last line a little, because it's not much more than a placeholder). If I wanted meaningful detail, then I would replace the last sentence because it was just a stand-in for a tell. I’d build that up with setting. The old coupe turned back to the rutted camp road and was soon lost in the trees. Summer slung her backpack over her shoulder. Above her swayed a canopy of red maple so thick that she couldn’t see the sky. The patter she heard in the high leaves might be rain, or maybe it was just be the wind. She couldn't be sure. She trudged up toward the campsite. So the original was 60 words, and I added 10 more, but now it's not wordy because the words actually do something. If I wanted to, I could probably expand only slightly and end with 45 or so. (That's done easily by chopping the forth and fifth sentences, "The patter . . .") Honestly, it should probably be closer to 100-150 words. If they're done right and have a purpose other than word count, the paragraph will hold. Wordiness comes from lack of purpose. Every phrase must prove that it deserves to live.
I wanted to post this too. It's a perfect opening. Just three sentences. The third is 83 words, but it isn't wordy at all because it's flawlessly constructed. It's not terse or minimalist in any way. It knows when to repeat and it knows when to emphasize. It still has elegance. IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. His story will be told here. His name was Jean--Baptiste Grenouille, and if his name--in contrast to the names of other gifted abominations, de Sade's, for instance, or Saint-Just's, Fbuche's, Bonaparte's, etc.--has been forgotten today, it is certainly not because Grenouille fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance, misanthropy, immorality, or, more succinctly, to wickedness, but because his gifts and his sole ambition were restricted to a domain that leaves no traces in history: to the fleeting realm of scent. That little sentence is in there like a sip of air before the oratory. Variation is important.
Read some Charles Bukowski. Actually that's terrible advice when I think about it because Bukowski writes the mundane. It's just that he does it so well.
This is something I suffer from and have been working on. I try to trim off all the verbal decorations. I try to see if I can find one word that replaces two or three(the key of brevity is a good vocabulary). I have one word sentences as that word conveys everything I need. After I am done with a section I go back and trim to avoid duplicating thoughts and focus on the simplest way to say what I want.
One piece of advice I read early in my writing life was: Assume your readers are intelligent people. Also, trust your readers. Allow them to fill in the details, because nothing you ever write will be as vivid as whatever is in your reader's head. If you're describing a chair, does it really matter whether it's gilded or if it's got metal legs or if the whole thing is in the shape of a wolf's head? Say just enough to allow your readers to paint in the details for themselves. Don't be so controlling that you insist the reader sees exactly what you want them to see. The important details are in the emotion, rarely the physical descriptions. As for the statement: assume readers are intelligent - that refers to little things like, "John walked across the room and opened the door. He left the room in a huff." No one needs to know all that. If you write "He left the room in a huff", your readers will assume he definitely walked across the room and had to open the door There are some ordinary things that do not require description. If you're a wordy writer, chances are your choice of details needs to be refined - but that does not necessarily mean you should become less wordy, does this make sense? Some writers (and readers) love lush details and chunky paragraphs of description that really paints everything for them. Such readers are rarer nowadays but they do still exist. I do not think you need to curb your style to satisfy the modern trend of cutting down everything fancy. Don't make yourself write like Hemingway when you may well be the next Nabokov or Shakespeare instead. So yes, curb the wordiness, but find a way of writing the way you love to write - lush language and all - that is meaningful to the reader. Meaningful, I feel, is the key word here. Look at Tolkien - sometimes you achieve richness only by being utterly indulgent. Find that balance. Don't get less wordy - but make your details count. Make them meaningful, and purposeful.
Yes. Thesaurus.com and dictionary.com are your friends. Keep them on hand well reading and when you see a word that isn't common usage-look it up in the dictionary, and then look it up in the thesaurus. A good vocabulary is something you can teach yourself. It will take time, but so does teaching yourself to write well. It's just another step in becoming a better writer. If you use a use a kindle, it has a built in dictionary app that will allow you to look up words, I assume most of the other electronic readers are similar, so if you have one of those, use it to look up words, even if you think you know the meaning based on context.
Probably not, unless you want to die of boredom. The best way to improve your vocabulary is to read more challenging books. History, literature, science, whatever. Make sure it's interesting to you though, or else it won't be much better than reading the dictionary. Your vocabulary will improve organically.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, by Patrick Suskind. It's one of my favorites. It feels so much like it was written in the 19th century. It's translated from German, but the translation is flawless. (Those are rare.) It has a perfectly realized setting. The writing's kind of like something Dostoevsky might do, only much more weird.
I wouldn't worry about overwriting while you're actually getting the story 'out there.' In fact, it can be a big help later on, during the editing phase, because you will have given yourself a lot to work with. Don't 'worry' as you write. Just let it all come out, however it will. You can work on the final form later on, during the edits. During the editing phase you can work on your wordiness in several ways. Here are three of them. One - look for repetition. Are there places where you've said something, then restated it to emphasise a point—rinse/repeat? Work on those places. My mantra for dealing with this issue, which I suffer from myself, is this: Say it once. Say it well. Then move on. Two - use punctuation to truncate long passages. Are there sentences you can break up? Instead of tacking on clause after clause, maybe just bring the sentence to a halt and start a new sentence with the rest of what you planned to say? That's another trick I learned, mainly from my journalist husband, who, as a news sub, was trained to pare stories down to their essential points. This was one trick he taught me. You can deliver the same amount of information, but it will seem more purposeful if it's broken down into bite-sized bits. Three - ask yourself, 'What is the purpose of this chapter? What do I want the reader to take away from it?' Force yourself to answer those two questions. They will help you to eliminate the things that don't serve the purpose of that chapter, but were kinda fun to write.
I'm minded of Frank Herbet's description of a chairdog in Dune Messiah - in that he never actually describes it. He mentions what it does in passing, how the POV character doesn't like how it tries to cuddle him when he sits in it. Presumably, a chairdog is a dog bred to be a chair, but he never actually states that, leaving it to the reader to interpret.
I know a surefire way to make your writing less wordy. It's an exercise that really helped me and something that altered the way I use langue. Write a short story using only one syllable words. The story doesn't have to be good so don't overthink that part. You just need a clear beginning, middle, and end. Length doesn't matter either. All you have to do is use ONLY one syllable words. If you can do it, this exercise will have an impact on your writing. It's seriously the most useful writing exercise I have ever done. Give it a try. It's quite the trip.
In regards to this specifically: Try to keep everything relevant to the story you're telling, maintain focus and consider the ultimate purpose of what you're writing. A little bit of fluff and whimsy for flavor is okay but treat it as a spice, not a main ingredient. Whenever you linger on something or describe it in great detail, you are implying to the reader that it's important and they should be paying attention to it. And if that something seems unimportant, you are promising them that it's going to matter later. Thus, the less relevant an element of your scene is to the progression of the plot, characterization and/or the over-all message of the story, the less time (words) you should spend on it. Filler, by definition, is something meant to take up space rather than serving a purpose in the narrative. In other words, it's wasting the reader's time. Don't do that. Assume that the reader is only interested in the immediate situation of your characters and what will become of them.
Terrific book - only read it once but loved it, and I often think I should read it again and to see how I like it now, as I read it as a student some 10 years ago. The film isn't bad either, actually - this was a hard book to turn into a film! This book also demonstrates well my earlier point - the flaw isn't in wordiness per se. Perfume is rich in language and quite descriptive. It's just harder to write in this style and write it well, but it's achievable! I just don't think you should change your style to conform to current trends, is what I'm saying. Is it really excessive, or just rich? Fine line, but there is a difference.
Would love to hear how it goes. It's not easy. When you think you've got it, you'll read through and catch worlds that have more syllables. That's what happened to me at first. Just keep working on it. It will really have an impact on the words you write and how they read on the page. The exercise can be a bit maddening, but it's totally worth doing.
