True Confessions

[Peg Herring]

I wrote earlier about early works and what we'd like to change. It's time to confess, and I'll start.

I began with plays, publishing four of them before I switched to novels. Looking back at them now, I see WAY too many words. I'd like to pretend that it was Shakespearean creation of mood, the verbiage weaving a spell for the audience, but in truth it was inexperience, and I'd love to get my hands on them and pare them down, especially the first one. I did learn over time, and they do get less wordy.

What that did for me is make me aware of my tendency to let my characters (and my narration, now that it's novels) talk too much. I work hard to shorten sentences, get rid of needless dialogue tags, and leave out factoids that interest me but slow the story down.

There's my confession: anyone else brave enough to confess?

[Dana King]

Same here. I don't think I've ever written anything I didn't think six months later could be improved by cutting parts out.