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elfsNo, 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".
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".
