There are various and sundry complaints about the “prequel” trilogy (PT, or POS to some) in comparison the the “original” trilogy (OT), but one misstep has always stood out to me (I know you’re thinking “Jar Jar!” but that’s not it… just hear me out). The Force is treated very differently from trilogy to trilogy.
When I meet a new writer, musician, artist, or any other creative type, the foremost question that intrigues me is: “how do you keep yourself on track?”
When you find yourself truculently bedighting your scrivenery with inimical prose, serried and thick as chaparral; I, for one, recommend elision instead. Otherwise, your writing may appear solecistic, and you, as a writer, solipsismal.
When someone asks for “description,” do you answer with “leave nothing to the imagination?”
Well, as you may know, this isn’t too classy, and although some folks may enjoy that, most probably don’t.
What King is saying is not to avoid writing darlings, but rather to remove them from the final product. This is important because I believe that breathing life into those “darlings” is one of the best ways a writer can improve his craft.
I’d like to borrow a tired chiché from my music education experience, which is that the “practice makes perfect” mantra is misleading. Practice makes permanent is more often true. Only perfect practice makes perfect. Which raises the question: how does one practice writing?
Research is, in the end, borrowing or reusing ideas for a different end goal. So, when perusing the dusty halls of human experience, remember to bring your notebook.
I’d like to bring your attention to Komatsu’s last line, which I believe to be the best: “What you can eliminate from fiction is the description of things that most readers have seen.”
So, trying to will your book into viral popularity is like the guy I saw driving down the freeway with a mattress strapped to the top of his car and one hand out the window, as if he could stop a freakin’ mattress (read: fluffy, spring-loaded SAIL) from flying off his car.
It’s snowing again in Northern Virginia. There’s not much accumulation, mind you, but a friend of mine pointed out how oddly we Northern Virginians react to snow. As he says, we know that it’s going to snow every year, and yet it still manages to catch us off guard.