AND SHE WAS
STATUS: Drinking coffee out of a mug that’s shaped like Bret Favre’s head.
FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Live-action Pac-Man.
I thought I’d share one of the big editing directions that Stacey gave me for Donut Days. It might be kind of obvious, but it’s one of those little things that, in my experience, can easily get pushed to the back-burner when you’re cooking along on a book.
According to Stacey, some of my scenes seemed to be happening in a vacuum because I wasn’t providing enough detail about the environment and the people that were in the scene. So, I’d have all this dialogue – a good three or four paragraphs worth, sometimes more – where my characters would just be talking but there were no visuals to underscore what was going on. She really encouraged me to slow down and spell out some of the details. I’ve written out a “before and after” example of some text that illustrates what Stacey was talking about. It’s not from Donut Days per se, but it’s similar enough:
BEFORE:
“I can’t believe you would do that,” I said.
“Well, deal with it,” replied Jane.
“I – I don’t know how.”
AFTER:
The wind picked up and the dust started swirling. “I can’t believe you would do that,” I said, clutching the empty canteen in my hands.
“Well, deal with it,” replied Jane, wiping her mouth.
“I – I don’t know how.”
I know this seems like pretty rudimentary stuff. I guess it is. Sometimes the mechanics of writing a book seem so obvious, but you know what they say about the obvious – it’s so smack-your-head evident it’s easy to ignore.
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