Last year I took a training class in report writing. As yawn-inducing as that reads, I couldn’t help but notice some immediate benefit. In fact, many of the lessons carried over to my fiction writing.
Background
My department does risk assessments. Current reports include everything but the proverbial kitchen sink. Short reports weigh-in at 25 pages with six page summaries. Long reports are ridiculous. Obviously, those reports are quite verbose. Don’t even get me started on the prevalence of passive voice.
Who is supposed to read all of that?
The trainer took one of our reports and condensed the multiple-page summary to a concise one-and-a-quarter pages. How did she do it? She began, as we all should, with one question—“Who is the intended audience?”
My department reports to a governing board. Most of the board members are quite imminent in the private sector and resent wasted time. They don’t care about policy-and-procedure details, (that’s for management to address). They certainly don’t care about how things are “supposed” to be done. They are highly concerned with risks to the institution.
Lesson for fiction writers: know your audience
The reader doesn’t care about your college major, your MFA (lack there of), or how much you know. They want a story. Opening with 100 pages of exposition is not a story.
Less is more
Professional reports impact budgets, inform staffing decisions, and may result in program or department eliminations. Those reports are scrutinized by the press and elected officials. Things can go from banal to “highly charged” in the turn of a phrase. So, for years, the prevailing practice in report writing involved a lot of padding and cushioning. Obviously, that makes for a lot of words that the intended audience does not care about.
Lesson for writers: more is never more
Fiction writers fall into two “wordy” categories. The first is the “noob,” or new writer who knows a lot of words and wants to use ALL OF THE WORDS, preferably in every sentence. The second is the seasoned but concerned “over-writer.” They don’t trust the reader to “get” their schtick so they explain and explain and explain. The reader doesn’t appreciate the extra words. The reader doesn’t hate the extra words. The reader either skips over the extra words or the reader stops reading entirely.
Word economy is key to brievity
Most report writers have favorite words (e.g. mitigate) that we use WAY too much. The report deconstructed in class was riddled with pet words and phrases (e.g. as a result) that bring neither clarity nor candor. We cut those down to: did, didn’t, have, haven’t, will, will not, caused, resulted, reduced, increased. Active, short, and to the point.
Lesson for writers: kill your darlings
Fiction writers have favorite phrases, too. If you cut all the scenes where someone goes to “stretch their legs,” in the Harry Potter books those novels would be pamphlets. Other writers exercise personal obsessions like Stephen King and the farts he packs into every story. Irreverent private investigator Spenser and no-nonsense police chief Jesse Stone share creator Robert B. Parker’s obsession with men’s fashion. None of that advances the story or contributes to character development.
Sticks and stones—word choice can cost you credibility
Originally, I come from an enforcement-and-interdiction background. So, my report language is direct. My fall back words—fraud, lied, failed, et al—are not really report words. They are fault-finding words and potential criminal-findings words. Used carelessly, they are aggressive, incendiary, even. Part of the training involved finding direct but objective language.
Lesson for writers: word choice can cost you readers
If your descriptive also serves as an invective, it’s not a descriptive. It’s an insult. While I love Robert B. Parker’s early novels, I have to pick on him again, here. Author-attitude bleeds through Parker’s descriptives. Parker’s schtick—insults for everyone who isn't him or his perfect companions—is funny. The first time. But with each use, in each book, a little more of the bright/shiny rubs off. The tedium and one-note tone are the reasons I stepped away from his books after 20 years.
Restatement muddles more than it clarifies
It's easy, for a variety of reasons, to repeat statements. In the training, we learned to ruthlessly excise restatement. Write it. Support it. Leave it where it lands. It's the same in fiction.
Lesson for writers: trust your readers
Repitition is common to new writers but even experienced writers will resort to saying the same things in different ways if they doubt their prose or their readers. The hero explains the mystery/crisis/epiphany to the supporting character. Then she/he has to explain it all again to a skeptical boss or frenemy. By this point the reader has dropped the book and turned on the television.
That's why we have edits. Find the best version and strike the rest.
Ultimately, technical or entertainment writing have the same objective: convey information. That one is factual information and the other is fiction really doesn’t change the overarching imperative: clarity. A great story means nothing if your reader is put off by clumsy prose.
The image at the top does not belong to me. It is used here for education/instructive purposes as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.
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