Maybe I'm Onto Something...
Last night was the most productive writing session that I've had for months. By the time I was done last night, I had more than 1,500 new words to my credit, not counting some words I added and decided to take out again.
At the start of the night, I was about to try and spruce up or revise something I had written previously. I knew that I had to do it, but I wasn't all that excited about that prospect, even though I knew the scene I was thinking about would be vital to the story. What had stuck in my mind that day were two scenes I knew were vital, that I had to have in there - my main character saying goodbye to his brother, and convincing a friend to visit him over the phone.
For this book, I decided to put into play a saying I had heard a year or so ago from Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing. #10 is:
Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
For me and my past work, it's been difficult to determine what is good to skip, especi…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Writing Life With Jason Liegois to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.