Ripping Out the Seams

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” —Mark Twain

I could write short story-rough drafts all day long and sometimes I do. I like nothing better than to pull the ideas from my brain and get them into a word document, but there comes a time when you need to revise.  And that time came for me when I needed to stop adding stories to a new collection I’m working on.  

After reading through the first story, The Eyes Have It, I came to these conclusions story:

1.    There is too much info dumping in the first pages of the story. There were so many flashbacks within flashbacks and flashbacks within those flashbacks that my main character’s head was spinning and it’s not even a “supernatural” story.

2.  There’s too much description and in the wrong places. This is the stuff I don’t like reading, you know where it goes on and on—and on. It needed a redo.

3.  The middle (of course) needs to be the beginning. How many times have I read or heard that?  Lots.

4. Some of the dumping info needs to be woven in with dialog and shared among the scenes.

This process made me think of sewing. I used to be my own personal seamstress and made MANY family frocks, as well. Because I had a tough, but fair, “Home Economics” teacher in high school, who expected our finished garments to be store quality, I became a skillful seamstress.  

As I began ripping apart my story, I was reminded of a top that I sewed in 1975—a new pattern, trendy, that promised to be an easy garment to assemble. No darts or linings. No zippers or buttonholes. The sleeves were butterfly like, suggestive of “hippy” wear, a sign of the times. After I sewed the last hem, clipped the last thread and turned the sewing machine light off, I puffed with pride over creating a garment so quick and easy.

In the spare room, where my sewing machine lived (along with our baby hamsters) I pulled off the shirt I was wearing to try on the new one. As I lifted it over my head and searched for the neck hole, I discovered there was no hole for my head.  Was I trying to put my head in the sleeve hole? A couple of spins of the garment later, I realized I had sewn both sleeves together and the front and back together because they looked similar.

Through the years, I’ve ripped out many seams, picked out a bazillion threads so that I could sew garments that would be worthy of wearing. Writing is like that. There comes a time when you must rip out the seams, pick it apart, then put it back together the right way so that the story is reader worthy.  Sometimes ripping out seams is  necessary. However, I prefer writing rough drafts. J 

P.S. Want to see what I was up to as a child? Then go read The Sugar War at The Ruralhood.

P.S.S. Send good vibes my way on Tuesday. It’s my 29^th birthday, um—again.