FROM THE HANDYMAN: Word Economy

[lit_handyman]

Sorry, I'm still not done the novel, but here is one of my more popular articles from my writers guide, The Literary Handyman. I have about 20,000 words to go on Today's Promise. Here's hoping they go quickly!

Enjoy!

Danielle

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Spend Your Words Wisely

(Originally published in the column If We’d Words Enough and Time, www.

Comments

Daily Word Count Update Challenge - And Writing Post

[pingback_bot]

User damcphail referenced to your post from Daily Word Count Update Challenge - And Writing Post saying: [...] favorite Spending Your Words Wisely: Word Economy http://lit-handyman.livejournal.com/14869.html [...]

[marycatelli]

I remember this exercise.

This is what I did last time.

Wow!

[damcphail]

Hi Mary,

Never realized how long you've been following me...Thank you! Sorry for the sometimes long dry spells. And the rerun.

I'd forgotten I'd posted this over at Sidhe na Daire. Thanks for sharing the link to what you wrote! I thought it was perfect...of course, none of my stuff won that competition either. It is so hard with such a small word count, particularly when so much about fiction is subjective. We never know what the reader is going to bring to it!

Hope you enjoyed...again :)

Best,

Danielle

Words

[phoebewray]

I get serious and start sweating when this topic comes up... Working on one of the first long stories I'd written, I did a search for the word "was" and nearly demolished the computer in my angst and frusrration. TOO MANY "was-es." Passive. Maybe because my earliest pro writing was in newspapers, I'm also prone to short sentences (it's impossible to remove the who/what/when/where mantra from the depths of the brain). The thesaurus is my best friend!

Now, get back to that novel!

Re: Words

[lit_handyman]

LOL...You are too much :) I hit 77,000 words today...I promise you, I'm all about the novel.

Yeah, I'm sure that I am guilty of excess wordage...and my share of passive, but done with style,the don't even notice...much...unless they are word nazis.

In which case I'm screwed anyway so bring out the words!

My frustration is that there are some actions there are only so many ways to describe without getting violently purple. Not too much issue in a shorter work, but when you're writing a novel it's the type of thing that is going to stick out at about the third time you use it...no matter how many thousand other words are between each occurance.

:::sigh:::

Thanks for reading!

Words PS

[phoebewray]

Not to be a pest, but I have a problem with the second example:
The recoil from the gun surprised him, the finality of it all didn't. Then he turned the gun toward himself next.
"Then" or "next," but why both?

Re: Words PS

[lit_handyman]

:::sigh::: because we don't spring into greatness, we get dragged into it kicking and screaming. This was probably written about nine years ago, at least...I've improved a bit since :)