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Before I start my latest installment of “Head to Keyboard,” I want to tell you a quick story.

A Quick Story

A while back, I made some comments on Facebook and Twitter agreeing with a writer who doesn’t want people to give him their manuscripts to critique. I got some pushback from a couple of my peers saying that they would rather give advice to struggling writers, as a way of paying it forward. I was resistant to this, and I hid behind the old chestnut that there really isn’t anything new to say on the subject of writing advice, especially since just about any “rule” I could lay down can be broken to great success.[1]

After a lot of reflection, the real reason is that I didn’t really consider myself all that advanced of a writer that I could dole out advice with any authority. It wasn’t that I thought I wasn’t good, but rather that I wasn’t good enough to have my advice be actually useful. In reading Chuck Wendig‘s “Advice You Should Probably Ignore“ posts, I realized that sharing my own experiences as a writer could be beneficial in its own way, in much the same way as the early episodes of Mur Lafferty’s “I Should Be Writing.” I’ve been doing a lot of that through my episode post-mortems on Whitechapel, but I’ll try to do more generalized revelations here.

For the children, you understand.

“Eddie! I Want HALF!” [2]

One common chestnut of advice is for writers to “murder your darlings,” which comes from Arthur Quiller-Couch and has been quoted about seven bajillion times since then. The reason it’s so often quoted is because it’s good advice. It’s such good advice that it actually overwrote another piece of advice in my brain that I got earlier in my career. I can’t find a source for the advice, but I do distinctly recall being told at one point that any story can be cut in half. I had always assumed this was meant to be hyperbolic (because, surprise, writers likes them some hyperbole).

Fast forward. I have been working on an assignment for work off and on for the past few weeks. I knew the project was going long after several drafts, but I got a directive to cut it in half. I agreed, but inside I freaked out a bit. “Cut it in half? I know it’s long, but half?” Now, I knew I had some parts I could cut and consolidate, but cutting in half seemed… well, it seemed like an unrealistic directive.

I cut that sonofabitch down to 52%. Easily. Even stranger, it’s better as a result.

I’m a pretty spare writer naturally — I’ve certainly got more Chandler than Christie in my writing DNA — but even my work was bloated in places. I’ve always advocated a trim when needed, but this deep kind of cut really showed me that we all write a whole bunch of crap, even after several drafts. A lot of it revolves around leaving things unsaid, and letting one sparkling detail sell a scene instead of lots of little ones.

Let me give you an example off the top of my head: “The penthouse was as austere and modern as the partygoers.”

Right there, we learn a lot: there’s a party going on, it’s in a penthouse, the people are probably rich, the place is not overly decorated, what is decorated is in a modern style, and the partygoers are young and conservatively dressed. We can even make some educated deductions from this — young conservative rich people partying probably means that the party is subdued, and it’s probably a business or political affair. That’s a lot of detail packed into ten words, which gives you more words to use to say what really matters in your story.

Now, that doesn’t mean that every turn of phrase has to be cut to the bone. Sometimes, you want to have the rhythm and cadence of a longer, more flowery passage, especially if the scene lends itself to something slower and more flowery. But I’m guessing more often than not, large chunks of your prose wouldn’t be missed if cut off and left to shrivel in the sun.

Try it. Grab a story you’re working on, check the word count, divide it by 2, and start cutting. Then, let it sit for a week or so and reread it, and see if you notice anything missing.

Footnote 1: Dan Brown is certainly a good example against the rule “You have to write well to succeed.”

Footnote 2: No, I didn’t misspell my own name. It’s a reference to an Eddie Murphy standup bit, that gets quoted to me. A lot. Like, really a lot. Like, you’ll be nowhere in the ballpark of original or funny if you post it in a comment or say it to me at the next convention. But it works here, and I’m not above mining my own misery for a bad joke.