Meager Progress

My rewrite of The Reader's Emporium is underway, by which I mean I made it past page one. Already I'm telling myself "I can fix this later" as I put words on the page.

Here's my thing: I tend to write long, then tighten it up later. The more I revise (edit), the shorter the work becomes, and I think that's a good thing. "Omit needless words." I take some perverse pleasure in reducing a paragraph's thought into a short phrase, but then worry that few readers will take the care necessary to digest it all.

Also, while I can express some particular thought in a few words, I wonder about the pacing as much as getting my meaning across. I have a line early on about how Brad is the subject of his friend's envy. I originally wrote that as "When he wasn't receiving the envy of his friends..." which prompted a reader to question if envy could be received. I see, now, that it would be simpler to write "his friends' envy," but I worry if it's necessary at all.

The thing is, I alternate between deleting everything that isn't absolutely necessary and hoping to tell the story richly. I know the story, have read it many times, and much of it is so well-known by me that I think none of it is necessary. Then, someone will read it and tell me they love all the passages I think are unnecessary, and I then worry if they're what makes the novel or what.

I need to be told what to do. I wish, I really wish, there was one single "right way" to write a novel, but even I know and love there's no answer. Different writers have different voices, different goals, and one of the things I most treasure about reading is the various ways thoughts are expressed. Hemingway cannot write Roth, Joyce couldn't carry off Wodehouse's world, and I can't expect to incorporate all the elements I love in any one book I write.

I guess that's why I can write more than one.