WRITING: Strike While the Iron’s Hot

Saddled with a splitting headache, I spent most of yesterday on the couch with the laptop determined to get some writing done. I found that unless I was going to write about the pounding hammer of pain in my brain, the next best thing to creating was recreating. Oddly enough, I pulled up a recent story that had gone through a couple of drafts and critiques from two writing group friends before it sputtered to a stop.

Reading it again, I saw the whole first two paragraphs needed some pulling apart and set to work with a vengeance, taking out a scenario that tied in with the ending so that I headed there next, using the highlighting feature to make it obvious what would have to be cut. Good, I thought; slash and burn is good.

Then I plumped up a dialogue between the only two characters left and rounded out the metaphor the entire story represents. When I got to the end, I realized that the major cut made in the opening made a huge difference in the end by taking out its correlating tying up of loose ends that often just get overly explanational (deal with it, I like it as a word) and defuse the meaning because they serve no other purpose to the story.

Then I threw in a couple of Siamese Fighting Fish and I think I’m done.