The Learning Continues

Earlier today, I posted another snippet from The River Lords, a short story I’ve been working on for several weeks. The metamorphosis of this story has been fascinating–and educational. About a week ago I thought I had a draft I was ready to submit for publication, but something nagged at me. I wasn’t all that pleased with the ending and I wasn’t sure that the ending made sense. I felt this way mostly because I had been immersed in all the changes without taking time in between each version and had become too close to the story. I had my wife and a friend with editing experience take a look. Turns out, it wasn’t as bad as I had feared, but there were things that could be done — like hacking off 2000 words from the beginning. All previous River Lords excerpts that I’ve posted on this blog are no longer in the story.

This story has gone from 10k words to under 5k to under 3k — all for the better. The story is more interesting, doesn’t try to explain everything, and has a cohesive flavor. I feel like editing and revising this short story has given me some valuable insights as I prepare to edit and revise the first draft of Shadow of the Black City. The things I take away from this experience are:

1. There is no such thing as writing too much, so long as you are willing to discard it.
2. You can chop way more from your story than you think and still have it make sense.
3. It’s always good to get a third party or twelve to look at your work just to make sure you are writing what you think you are writing.
4. If you think you are starting your short story close to the end of the story, look again, you probably aren’t.

To some who read this post, these insights may be nothing new, but for fairly new writers like me, maybe it will be of use. I’m a writer who, even though I read as much as I can on the process and the craft, am doomed to find out many things for myself, the hard way. But also the fun way–through writing.