Online Writing - Steering the Craft, Exercise 10

We are working our way through the excellent writing exercises in Ursula K LeGuin's "Steering the Craft". The exercise is below, but she provides so much more in the book - do what you can to locate the book at the library, on alibris.com or Amazon, etc.

We will also have a discussion session where we share tips on finding time to write, things we may have discovered to help our craft, tools and resources, more about agents and publishing. No matter where you are in the creative process of writing, novice or experienced, please join and share.

This month is Exercise 10: A Terrible Thing To Do
Take something you have written - anything over 400 words -- and cut it in half. This doesn't mean just cutting a bit here and there, snipping and pruning-- though that's part of it. It means counting the words and reducing them to half that many while keeping the narrative clear and the sensory impact vivid, not replacing specifics by generalities, and never using the work "somehow". If there's dialogue in your piece, cut any long speech or long covnersation in half just as implacably.

Have fun with it and we will see you soon!