101 Reasons to Stop Writing

May is International Slushpile Awareness Month

 
This Month's Demotivator:
2006 Nov 3

Reason #5: I’ll Just Pad This Out

By Sean Lindsay

Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing, #10: “Try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip.”

Padding: When you run out of ideas, but keep on writing. It’s also something insecure rockstars do to their crotches. The fluff covering the flaccid.

There are only two reasons to pad your writing:

  • You’ve got a target wordcount and a deadline you can’t meet
  • You’re bored/stuck with the section you’re working on, so you digress

They both equate to:

  • You have contempt for your readers.

If your story is short on wordcount, that’s because it’s a short story.

Categories: Reasons
 

2 Comments

  1. Absolutely essential rule, 99.99% of the crap you see online or anywhere else could be eliminated by following this rule.

    Write your material. Rewrite it. Then cut out everything that’s crap. Then cut out everything that’s only moderately good. Then cut out anything that isn’t top-notch. By that point you’ll probably need to start writing it again - congratulations! You’ve just saved your readers a ton of time!

    April 28th, 2007 at 3:37 am

  2. Kramer auto Pingback[...] I’m a big fan of the "Tell the story in as few books as possible" school of thought. http://101reasonstostopwriting.com/2…-pad-this-out/ http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/ (Specifically, #s 28-31.) [...]

    January 13th, 2008 at 11:19 am

  3. links from Technoratiوكلاهما يُعادل: أنت تزدري قراءكإذا كانت قصتك قصيرة في عداد الكلمات، فإن هذا بسبب كونها قصة قصيرة! شون لندسي، 3 نوفمبر 2006Reason #5: I’ll Just Pad This Outتعليق: المسطرة! رغم أن الكتابة فعلٌ متمردٌ على القواعد، إلا أن قاعدة إلمر ليونارد العاشرة توصيف لما ينبغي أن يكون الأمر عليه في الكتابة.

    July 9th, 2008 at 10:26 pm

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