Improve your writing with this top tip!
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This is one of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever been given.
I was at my first science fiction convention. It was at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool in 1997.
Chris Priest had advised me to go. He said these Easter conventions were great for meeting people.
And it was great – but it was kind of scary too! I didn’t know anybody, but the Adelphi is a big place, so you can wander round and not look like a spare part.
I remember seeing Octavia Butler gliding through the room. She was one of the guests of honour. It was a wow moment. She was so enigmatic and graceful.
And then, when I was getting on the train to come home, I helped Brian Aldiss with his suitcase!
I really felt like I was in the right place.
Chris had told me to just start talking to people. So I thought, OK, I’ll give it a go.
So as I was wandering round I saw this guy at the bar I thought I recognised: he looked like a writer called David Garnett.
I’d read a story David had written called The Only One, and really liked it. It was set in the 19th century, and about trying to undo something you really regret.
So I thought, well, you know, nothing ventured…
We spent the rest of the evening standing at the bar talking science fiction and Dave introducing me to people – real players in the industry: writers, artists, editors. I couldn’t believe it. This was exactly why I’d gone to this convention.
At the time, he was editing a magazine called New Worlds, and towards the end of the evening he told me to send him a story.
So when I got home, I looked through the story and probably rewrote it a bit, because, you know, when you’re looking at something like this with someone else’s eyes it’s 😱!
But in the end I sent it off. This was in the days of posting things in envelopes. There was no email back then. No online submissions.
You had to send your story or whatever through the post with a stamped address envelope, so they could send it back to you when they rejected it.
Which they usually did!
Eventually the story came back with some notes. He didn’t want to buy it but there was a lot of really positive feedback.
And he gave me one really solid piece of advice at the end:
Don’t try and cram in so much.
So I looked at the words and I looked at the story.
And I didn’t know what he was on about.
Where had I crammed?
Where was there too much?
At the time I couldn’t see it. It was only years later that I realised.
In trying to make a big impression, I was throwing the kitchen sink at my writing.
There was no air.
No room to breathe.
No restraint.
I hadn’t yet learned that what you leave out is as important as what you put in.
What do I mean by that?
If you think about people having a conversation – and this is something I learned writing audio drama – in everyday conversation we don’t talk in complete sentences. When you really start listening to conversations, they’re all over the place.
When writing a conversation you’ve got to leave gaps. Gaps that are filled in by the listener or the reader or whoever.
In something like audio drama, the real meat of a story is between the lines. And as a BBC producer once told me, “The dialogue has to skim over the surface of reality.”
I didn’t get anything made by the BBC, although I had a couple of meetings at Broadcasting House. But Listening Shelf did make a great little production of something I wrote called ModRocker.
I initially wrote this for a charity event in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. It was a stage play that a couple of actors performed script-in-hand, then Listening Shelf made it into an audio drama. It’s just 12 minutes, but of all the stuff I’ve written this is the thing I’m most proud.
Learning what to leave out is one of the most difficult things in any creative endeavour.
Less is more.
That’s a phrase for a reason.
It’s really all about confidence.
Confidence in our vision.
Confidence in our ability.
Confidence in ourselves.
So look for things to cut. Leave out anything that doesn’t earn its place.
If in doubt, leave it out.
Trust your gut instinct. I say that so many times.
I’ve been writing as an adult for over 30 years and it still amazes me how much you can cut and still say the same thing.
So trust your gut instinct, have confidence and cut.
Then cut some more.
I’m a writer, editor and content creator with 30 years’ experience across business, fiction, other non-fiction, scriptwriting and education. Learn more about my work.
Martin Sketchley 