About Being Perfection

Post 1178:

A friend texted me last night about how he’d been finishing a book for ten years. He was trying to convey the difficulty in writing fiction. More specifically, finishing fiction.

Finishing is just the beginning. That’s the sad part. Because once you think you’ve got something coherent, it’s time to stagger into the cutting room floor. Get ready for the death of what you knew. It’s going to be different, now.

My biggest worry is deciding whether I’m telling the reader too little or too much. It’s so hard to be objective when you are the writer, because you’re behind the scenes, privy to all the information. Spelling everything out seems condescending, while keeping things extremely vague isn’t fair and makes people feel frustrated, like they’re not “getting it.”

The more I’ve written over the years, the more I value people understanding the characters and scenes without having to try very hard. This means being clear and keeping things a little simpler than you might want to, but it doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice style or deeper subplots. They can still be there. But the main narrative has to be easy enough to follow. Unless you’re going for avant-garde. That’s cool, too. But I guess it depends on your goal. Do you want to tell a good story or make people use google and a dictionary to understand what the hell you’re talking about?

Really, it’s up to you. I say there’s enough confusion these days. Let them understand. Also trust them to understand. In other words, be perfect. Why is that so hard? Just do perfection and let’s move on. There are stories to tell.

Cheers and see you after.