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foolish_m0rtalDon't sacrifice clarity for conciseness
We've finished talking about paring off the fat, and now I'm going to tell you to add it back. To reference Fitzgerald, I lean more towards being a taker-outer than a putter-inner. (No, that is not supposed to be a dirty joke) If I think something is too verbose or distracting, I will take it out and put it in my junk pile, which I will talk about later. In extremes, this has landed me in a hell of a lot of trouble in the past. Let's take a look at another sentence from the same fic:
He knew it was Jonathan’s bed because a pair of dark leather gloves had been carelessly left on the bedside table but he would have much rather preferred the bed to look messy as if Jonathan had just climbed out of it and walked out, though he knew the immediacy of the housekeeping was a credit to the meticulous nature of the maids in Drescher’s inn and made a point of saying so.
This sentence, what the hell is it?! There are a lot of things happening at once, and I don't know what the hell is going on. Don't be afraid of short sentences. Always make it clear who is talking and where things are taking place. The spatial sense of a reader is important to the clarity of your story.
He knew it was Jonathan’s bed because a pair of dark leather gloves had been carelessly left on the bedside table, but he would have much rather preferred the bed to look messy as if Jonathan had just climbed out of it and walked out.
Full stop. That is one captured moment of spatial information. The reader knows where the main character is, and what he's thinking. In the story, Jonathan has been missing for three days, so the sentence also shows some anxiety on the main character's part. Good job. In the next sentence, there is a long distance between the 'he' in the beginning and the end bit ('made a point of saying so') that is vague enough to be unsettling. If you find your eyes going back to the beginning of the sentence, the meaning is not clear. Either break it up or clarify it.
However, he knew the immediacy of the housekeeping was a credit to the meticulous nature of the maids in Drescher’s inn, and he made a point of saying so.
Yes, great. We aren't mentally scrambling for information, nor have we lost the rhythm or attention in the story.
(Back to main advice page)
We've finished talking about paring off the fat, and now I'm going to tell you to add it back. To reference Fitzgerald, I lean more towards being a taker-outer than a putter-inner. (No, that is not supposed to be a dirty joke) If I think something is too verbose or distracting, I will take it out and put it in my junk pile, which I will talk about later. In extremes, this has landed me in a hell of a lot of trouble in the past. Let's take a look at another sentence from the same fic:
He knew it was Jonathan’s bed because a pair of dark leather gloves had been carelessly left on the bedside table but he would have much rather preferred the bed to look messy as if Jonathan had just climbed out of it and walked out, though he knew the immediacy of the housekeeping was a credit to the meticulous nature of the maids in Drescher’s inn and made a point of saying so.
This sentence, what the hell is it?! There are a lot of things happening at once, and I don't know what the hell is going on. Don't be afraid of short sentences. Always make it clear who is talking and where things are taking place. The spatial sense of a reader is important to the clarity of your story.
He knew it was Jonathan’s bed because a pair of dark leather gloves had been carelessly left on the bedside table, but he would have much rather preferred the bed to look messy as if Jonathan had just climbed out of it and walked out.
Full stop. That is one captured moment of spatial information. The reader knows where the main character is, and what he's thinking. In the story, Jonathan has been missing for three days, so the sentence also shows some anxiety on the main character's part. Good job. In the next sentence, there is a long distance between the 'he' in the beginning and the end bit ('made a point of saying so') that is vague enough to be unsettling. If you find your eyes going back to the beginning of the sentence, the meaning is not clear. Either break it up or clarify it.
However, he knew the immediacy of the housekeeping was a credit to the meticulous nature of the maids in Drescher’s inn, and he made a point of saying so.
Yes, great. We aren't mentally scrambling for information, nor have we lost the rhythm or attention in the story.
(Back to main advice page)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-29 12:20 am (UTC)I haven't brought up certain things because they are irrelevant to the points I'm raising in the post. The story samples I've provided are from a story I'm writing as an homage to M.R. James, so I am sticking a little to his style. I rather like his style anyway because it fits more closely with the style I want for my steampunk stories. It's a bit of a learning exercise at times.