I think it's great that you put so much thought into this, and even greater you posted it for everyone. A few thoughts: 1) funny how some of the sayings Orwell put forth as tired examples don't seem that way, to me, anymore. Others I've never even heard of. 2) I've scoured my short story, removing half my "then" on your advice. A+ 3) I heartily recommend "Editing Fiction at Sentence Level" by Louise Harnby
Thanks, Val. I appreciate the comment. Comments like that keep me going.
Yes, Orwell wrote that in 1946, I believe, so what was in-between then might be dead now, and what was alive then might now be dying!
I'm glad my comments on my own writing helped yours! Another of those pesky words is 'that'. I think we often overuse it. Google defines 'that' as a pronoun, determiner and adverb, and there are definite uses for it, but something like: 'He only knew that the old man would quit,' doesn't seem to need it, in my opinion. I might be wrong. I can imagine a sentence like: 'He had only known that the old would quit but then he soon learned otherwise.' Haha, a mess.
I will check out that book you mentioned. It is now on my wishlist.
One last thing, I thought I would just explain what I'm doing on Substack. Here's a quote from Ray Bradbury: 'The best hygiene for beginning writers or intermediate writers is to write a hell of a lot of short stories. If you can write one short story a week—it doesn't matter what the quality is to start, but at least you're practicing, and at the end of the year you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones.' So, in short, I'm writing short stories and reflecting on them as a learning process. The feedback loop is faster than writing a novel.
I appreciate you taking the time to read and engage with my work. If you have any friends who might enjoy it, (then) I'd appreciate it if you passed my work on! I'm at 185 subscribers and I want to get to 200.
I agree about cutting 'that' in the examples you provide above. Taking a second look at a paragraph and editing and cutting, in effect writing the same idea with fewer words, is one of the things I enjoy most about writing. It shouldn't be done to an extent it eliminates a character/narrator 'voice', though, a mistake I sometimes make.
I don't know if I could write at Bradbury's suggested pace, I edit too fiercely, but I could probably do 12 a stories year. I'll try another in Oct.
I think it's great that you put so much thought into this, and even greater you posted it for everyone. A few thoughts: 1) funny how some of the sayings Orwell put forth as tired examples don't seem that way, to me, anymore. Others I've never even heard of. 2) I've scoured my short story, removing half my "then" on your advice. A+ 3) I heartily recommend "Editing Fiction at Sentence Level" by Louise Harnby
Thanks, Val. I appreciate the comment. Comments like that keep me going.
Yes, Orwell wrote that in 1946, I believe, so what was in-between then might be dead now, and what was alive then might now be dying!
I'm glad my comments on my own writing helped yours! Another of those pesky words is 'that'. I think we often overuse it. Google defines 'that' as a pronoun, determiner and adverb, and there are definite uses for it, but something like: 'He only knew that the old man would quit,' doesn't seem to need it, in my opinion. I might be wrong. I can imagine a sentence like: 'He had only known that the old would quit but then he soon learned otherwise.' Haha, a mess.
I will check out that book you mentioned. It is now on my wishlist.
One last thing, I thought I would just explain what I'm doing on Substack. Here's a quote from Ray Bradbury: 'The best hygiene for beginning writers or intermediate writers is to write a hell of a lot of short stories. If you can write one short story a week—it doesn't matter what the quality is to start, but at least you're practicing, and at the end of the year you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones.' So, in short, I'm writing short stories and reflecting on them as a learning process. The feedback loop is faster than writing a novel.
I appreciate you taking the time to read and engage with my work. If you have any friends who might enjoy it, (then) I'd appreciate it if you passed my work on! I'm at 185 subscribers and I want to get to 200.
I agree about cutting 'that' in the examples you provide above. Taking a second look at a paragraph and editing and cutting, in effect writing the same idea with fewer words, is one of the things I enjoy most about writing. It shouldn't be done to an extent it eliminates a character/narrator 'voice', though, a mistake I sometimes make.
I don't know if I could write at Bradbury's suggested pace, I edit too fiercely, but I could probably do 12 a stories year. I'll try another in Oct.