Day 5: Padding not for You? What about Editing?

I know everyone (myself most likely included) will tell you to pad your prose with as many lengthy descriptions and added words as you can to help raise that word count. But you know you don’t actually have to do it that way, sometimes it’s even better not to bother.

Say for instance you start writing a conversation, if all you want to do is write down what your characters want to say to one another than do so. Don’t worry if you leave out the ‘he said’ or ‘she replied’ bits or if you can’t find a clever way of putting it. Don’t fuss over location or timing, just write what comes to you, and fill in the rest later. If you let yourself get hung up on the details you might miss what your characters are trying to say.

On a related note, most people will also tell you not to edit; this is good advice as far as editing means cutting out unnecessary things and rewriting something entirely. It does not however have to apply to going back and filling in things you skipped over or to expanding on something you only briefly mentioned. If you want to go back and describe, in detail, the house that your character grew up in, go ahead. If you want to change a line like ‘and so he told them the whole sorry tale’ to a full retelling of the event you can certainly do that.

In short write whatever, whenever, however, you can manage to write the best. If this means going against popular advice then so be it. Everyone works a little differently, just find what works for you.

— Rita