On Writing

Do not think that because you are unable to wring pearls of writing from your keyboard the first time that you are any different than F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald revised his work 25 to 30 times. That is the work of the pro. Any writer has to go back into his pages and recreate and rewrite to get all the details and emotion into a scene.

That does not mean cutting until all you have left is a sentence with a noun and a verb and maybe an adjective. You have to carve off the fat and get to the meat of what you're trying to say quickly, although sometimes the meat needs a little parsley. You must spark the reader's imagination. That is not easily done because today's reader is also a TV-watcher, which requires little imagination. You must bend and flex Your reader's imagination because it is weak and unresponsive.

More Articles

 On Writing    Fashioning a Scene

Conflict    The Character's Mind    Self-Editing

Short Stories

Making Waves

Roger Paulding is the  author of The Pickled Dog Caper, numerous short stories, family histories, and has other novels in progress.