Photo credit: Aline Ponce on Pixabay

Tonight’s writing was less about producing and more about tweaking. Anything from a word to a sentence to a plot point—I skimmed through a chunk in the first section, playing with language.

To be honest, that’s one of my favorite parts of writing. I simply do not understand people who dislike editing. Editing is where the story moves from a barebones plot to having life and color. Maybe some people can create a full-blown scene on the first draft, but not me. For me, the progression is more like this:

Draft #1: Joe walked into the living room.

Draft #2: Joe strolled into the living room and sat down.

Draft #3: Joe strolled into the living room and took a seat in the chair by the fireplace.

Draft #4: Joe strolled into the living room. Beside the fireplace was his father’s favorite armchair. Joe seated himself with a contented sigh. As long as he could remember, the maid had rubbed pure neatsfoot oil into the deep red leather until it was as soft and supple as Laura’s thigh.

That’s the type of thing I did tonight: I enhanced details to make moments more vivid. It doesn’t always feel as though I’ve done much, but it’s those differences—like the difference between an unspecified generic chair and a luxurious red leather armchair—that enable the reader to inhabit the characters’ world.

I still need to color a lot more scenes, but tonight I made progress in that area. So even if it wasn’t a long session, I accomplished something.