Andrew Norriss
Andrew Norriss: 4. Cutting it down
You might want to ignore this one. I just know it’s something I always do. In the first draft, I shove in everything. I don’t try and decide whether it’s useful or relevant - if it seems fun at the time, I put it in. In all the later drafts, however, I’m usually taking stuff out, and my final draft is always at least a third shorter than the first. I take out things that seem irrelevant to the story, are too long winded, repetitive, or too elaborate. Perhaps it’s because I’m writing stories for children, but I try very hard to make the story telling as clear, simple and direct as I can.
There are writers, however, who don’t do this at all. I don’t think J K Rowling found that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was a third shorter in the final draft. Or that Dickens hacked out sections of Great Expectations. You could go through both of those with an editing pen and have a more concise and very powerful story, but not many would thank you for doing it.
And yet… it’s as well to bear in mind that you are taking up someone else’s time when you expect them to read something and I do my best to make sure that each sentence counts and every paragraph has a purpose.
Andrew Norriss
