I enjoy a
minimalist’s writing style. Anyone who ever read my novels probably noticed. I
admit that such a style proves anything but normal for fantasy stories. That
might serve as one of the reasons I enjoy this style so much.
I live in fear of
one thing other than zombie clowns. I fear a bored reader will set aside my
work and “get back to it eventually.” A greased pace to my novels helps avoid
such disaster.
I withhold nothing
when I write the “vomit draft” of a novel. I usually end up with a book that
runs close to a thousand pages. I afterwards sharpen the hatchet and slaughter
my child, until nothing remains but the heart of my story.
A man sees Michelangelo’s recently completed
masterpiece, David.
The man asks Michelangelo, “How did you
craft that statue from a pillar of marble?”
Michelangelo replies, “Easy. I chipped away
all the pieces that were not David.”
I would like,
today, to discuss methods that help me trim the fat from my
sentences, find more concise ways to tell the same story.
1)
Write the film script.
If you don’t own the script-writing software
Final Draft, you can always download
a program called Celtx for free.
You, armed with either software package plus
a draft of your current novel, can write the film script version of your story.
Don’t fret if you don’t know how to write a
script. Tutorials exist on Youtube. You can also study preexisting scripts.
You now face the goal of a one hundred-paged
script. No more. No fewer.
Why one hundred pages? A professor at film school once told me that this leaves the wiggle room to remove or
add a scene without a final product that runs too long or short for the big
screen.
Remember that every page of your script
equals about a minute of screen time.
You'll likely discover that your novel
results in more than one hundred pages of script.
You can combine or remove characters.
Shorten dialogue or replace it with action.
Remove scenes or pool them together in a
montage.
You shall discover, while you struggle to
squeeze your story into one hundred pages, which scenes and characters your
story can survive without.
You ought to remember that your favorite
scenes and characters serve as your most dangerous. They represent the ones you
will fight tooth-and-nail to keep, whether they need to exist in your story or not.
Trust me. I know this well from experience.
2)
Three lines per paragraph.
A film professor
(not the same as previously mentioned) told me to keep all my paragraphs, may
they serve as blocks of dialogue, setting, or action, to three lines or fewer
apiece.
Why? Actors and
set designers find it easier to keep their place on the page this way.
Seriously.
People find it
easier to recall—should something sidetrack them for an instant—whether they
read the top, middle, or bottom line in a paragraph.
The craziest thing
happened while I labored to shorten all my paragraphs to three lines apiece. I
discovered more succinct ways to tell the reader the same thing.
Necessity.
Invention.
I use the
three-line method in my novels (though a single line on Microsoft Word will not
always equal a line on Kindle). It works wonders. If a rule forces you to chop
away fat, fat you will find.
Go sharpen your
hatchet.
(Thanks for reading.
You might notice below that I changed the schedule for my blogs. I will,
because of the number of projects on my plate, only produce a short story for
this blog on Mondays. Fiction Formula will switch from Fridays to Thursdays. I apologize
for any inconvenience, though I . . . doubt this will rock anyone's existence.
Thanks again!)
I
publish my blogs as follows:
Tuesdays:
A look at the politics of the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.
Wednesdays:
An inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com
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