High-calorie phraseology…
I read somewhere that while writing your rough draft, you should have fun and play with it, pander to yourself. Use those flowery phrases and long descriptions you enjoy. However, when you do your rewrite be brutal and cut to the bones of the story.
Heck, I wish I had the habit of overwriting. My rough drafts are too tight. I spend too much time in rewrites adding things. I long for more meat and fat to cut. Instead, I need to flesh out the bones.
Sometimes I think I listened too well to all those sessions where they told us to keep it simple. I have to learn to play with my writing more and listen to my little editor less when I do a rough draft. I need to change my writing diet and quit curbing my appetite for high-fat phrases.
Would a diet of high-calorie phraseology and fat-laden metaphors and similes smooth the progress of my writing? Do the bones need to have more flesh in the rough draft?
Posted on June 21, 2010, in My blog, Writer, Writing and tagged Author, Bones, books, Books on writing, Bull Terriers, Care giving, Caregiver, Craft of writing, Dead, Disability, Doggoned, Family, Fiction, Home, Life, Love, MS, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Novel writing, Writer, Writing. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
Doggonedmysteries 
Having read lots of your work, the answer is yes. It’s good always, but…Twiggy had more meat on her bones.
Maybe this would help: Imagine you are writing for someone who isn’t the tightest wrench in the toolbox, that you must include even the tiniest detail, explain every little thing in words of one syllable.
Then in re-writes, you can go back and look at sentences and phrases and say, “Everybody knows that.” or “They don’t need to know this.” or “This doesn’t matter.” and slash it.
I’ll try to do that. I think my Twiggy mode of writing came about from writing with many interruptions and the need to get the bones down.
Try it one time. Take a story you might not have started yet and play with it the way you mentioned. Sometimes doing something else a little different adds insight to another project being currently worked on. Good luck.
Thanks. It will be an interesting exercise for me.
Okay, so write a Twiggy, wrap it in a fat suit in the first re-write, then put it on a diet, paring away the excess, in the second.
You got a tape recorder? Make a verbal Twiggy first, then as you transcribe it to the computer pack on the pounds, and exercise the fat away in the re-write.