2146 words down today.
They say Tuesdays are the most depressing days of the week, which I can understand. You’re coming off of a Monday, so you’re not feeling well rested like after a weekend day, and you’ve still got a long way to go in the week. So, here’s to all of you trudging through Tuesday! It’ll be Friday before too long.
Anyway, today’s writing got a bit emotional, and I’ve been reading peoples’ thoughts on writing emotionally tense or charged scenes, and I realized something about myself. I came to understand that when I write, especially in these more emotionally tense scenes, I write them first with a “tell” attitude. I sort of just say “she could tell he felt devastated” or “he couldn’t contain his fear.” When I go back and edit, though, I expand on these things. I change them from “she could tell he felt devastated,” to something more descriptive like, “his eyes stared back at her, unblinking and wavering with shock. His breath came in short, frightful sips.” That might be an overstatement, but the idea is there. When I write, I sometimes am almost outlining what I want to say, and when I edit I go back and say, “Hm. No, that’s not nearly what it should be.”
This just furthers my belief that Hemingway was right when he said, “The first draft of anything is shit.”
Bishop
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