Deboning

[elfs]

No, this is not about removing the love scenes.

I recently wrote a commentary to the effect that I was underwhelmed by John Harris's essay about how "worldbuilding is a waste of time" and the triumph of geekiness over craft.

A long time ago at a convention I heard Bujold use the term "fishhead" for the first few chapters of a story that the writer ultimately discards after the story is finally moving: they're the unnecessary world building and character establishment the writer needed as warmup, the undigestible start of the story that don't really serve the reader. If the story really starts in chapter three, smart writers ultimately delete chapters one and two from their final draft.

Despite my lack of whelm, I found Harris's essay a reasonable reminder, so much so that I've gone through Sterlings and started to tear out all of the paragraphs and even the sentences where I intrude and add to the conversation those elements that the conversants themselves would never bother bringing to consciousness. The story reads better for it, stronger. And given the nitpicking way in which it's done, as opposed to just lopping off the fishhead, I have decided to call this process "deboning".

Comments

[orcaarrow.livejournal.com]

This just shows the rest of us what an excellent and talented author you are.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

It's more of "what do I add to my list of mechanics?" Along with all the other things that have to come out, all of the tics and writerism and so on, I've learned a new drag on my stories: the intrusive infodump. Even one sentence can drag a story down and be an intrusive infodump.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Back when I was writing mediocre poetry, I found that I had to write for a while before the actual poem started--unfortunately I didn't figure this out until around the same time that I realized I was a lousy writer and had given up.