Article on Tightening your story structure

[DelActivisto]

I found this handy article whilst browsing the website of my local book writing club.

C. Lill Ahrens' Tighty Writey Game - Willamette Writers

The old saying, “Can’t see the forest for the trees” can be a metaphor for wordy writing. Too many extra words obscure the view of your story.

In contrast to “cutting,” (the deletion of an entire subplot, minor character, etc.), “tightening” is a delicate and complex process. Its goal is to convey your story information (visual imagery, backstory, action etc.) with fewer words and greater clarity. Tight writing is not a style, it’s what successful writers have in common. Tight writing is strong writing.

I invented my Tighty Writey Game to reduce a 2,000 word story to a contest’s 1,500 word limit. The game made the tightening process fun. It also worked: The story won first place.

“Tight writing is not a style, it’s what successful writers have in common. Tight writing is strong writing.”

Below are examples of tightening, followed by the step-by-step rules of The Tighty Writey Game.

A lot of it is fairly standard advise. It's delivered in a very humorous manner however, so be sure to check out the article. Some of the issues are some I battle with quite a bit – getting rid of extra "was" and "were" words to reduce passivity, for instance, and reducing wordiness. Nothing's worse than a sentence that's 50% longer than is needed.

 

[Cathbad]

Fine article.

These rules should work for SF & F genres, but there's at least one it won't - the Mystery genre. Publishers don't feel 150 to 200 page novels are worth the expense: But the genre is best at that size (look at the older novels, and you'll see). So mystery authors now add about 100 pages of fluff, or, sadly, far more "red herrings" than are remotely necessary!

But, as I said, fine article.

 

[DelActivisto]

Fine article.

These rules should work for SF & F genres, but there's at least one it won't - the Mystery genre. Publishers don't feel 150 to 200 page novels are worth the expense: But the genre is best at that size (look at the older novels, and you'll see). So mystery authors now add about 100 pages of fluff, or, sadly, far more "red herrings" than are remotely necessary!

But, as I said, fine article.

I'm a bit confused. Are you disagreeing with the article or not?

I don't think the emphasis was on book length at all. I consider 350 pages a short book. 150 pages is a short story to me. I rarely pick up anything smaller. But if I encounter a high degree of wordiness, especially in a manner that conveys lack of experience and compensation, it's a major turn off. In many cases, we can still fully appreciate Robert Jordan's page-long descriptions of dresses, because the prose used is mature, well paced, and poetic.

 

[Cathbad]

I'm a bit confused. Are you disagreeing with the article or not?

I agree with it: But tightening up mysteries just isn't feasible. Most, if they're good, standard mysteries, wouldn't be long enough (after tightening) for today's publishers.

I consider 350 pages a short book

I'm supposing you are speaking of your own writing?? I just looked it up, and it says the average "mainstream and mystery novels" are 240 pages long. I think only Fantasies are often as long as 350 pages, and to a lesser extent, Sci-Fi. Personally, I don't care how long the novel is, as long as it's a good story!

 

[DelActivisto]

I agree with it: But tightening up mysteries just isn't feasible. Most, if they're good, standard mysteries, wouldn't be long enough (after tightening) for today's publishers.



I'm supposing you are speaking of your own writing?? I just looked it up, and it says the average "mainstream and mystery novels" are 240 pages long. I think only Fantasies are often as long as 350 pages, and to a lesser extent, Sci-Fi. Personally, I don't care how long the novel is, as long as it's a good story!

Ah, got ya. You meant mystery novels in particular. I don't read too many of those - I read some Nancy Dress when I was young. They tended to be very short, though.

Yes, that might be the average, but it's not what I consider an average length book. I was reading Robert Jordan when I was 9.

 

[Cathbad]

Jordan is hardly the average book size! 100-page forwards! No, no, no, no. Please don't judge book-size by Jordan!

 

[DelActivisto]

I bought a new fantasy novel called "Shannara Chronicles." Okay, it was written in 1985, but it's a new print. 530+ pages.

But anyhow. A book can be any length and be "tight." Just depends on how much description, plot, and structuring the story has - its complexity, that is.

 

[R.T James]

Guy de Maupassant I consider to be "tight" his works while wordy are the right type. Charles Dickens great expectations was a book where I skipped over an inch of pages and read the ending and got everything. It was School assignment. I was so excited to be reading a victorian era book, then I found out I really didn't like that book. Give me my victorian french authors with fun prose and banter!

Not Charles Dickens, That man could write 30 pages on picking up a penny from the ground!

Maybe not all of his books are like that, but it really turned me off from him.

 

[sknox]

Agatha Christie's works were generally fairly short. Likewise with Georges Simenon. Not to mention Ellery Queen and his ilk.

But that was all long ago and far away.

 

[DelActivisto]

Guy de Maupassant I consider to be "tight" his works while wordy are the right type. Charles Dickens great expectations was a book where I skipped over an inch of pages and read the ending and got everything. It was School assignment. I was so excited to be reading a victorian era book, then I found out I really didn't like that book. Give me my victorian french authors with fun prose and banter!

Not Charles Dickens, That man could write 30 pages on picking up a penny from the ground!

Maybe not all of his books are like that, but it really turned me off from him.

Dickens was a penny a word writer, or something like that. So there you go.

 

[Cathbad]

Agatha Christie's works were generally fairly short. Likewise with Georges Simenon. Not to mention Ellery Queen and his ilk.

But that was all long ago and far away.

Now we get to read about all the pretty scenery on a trip from L.A, into the country. Grafton is good at descriptions, but 20 pages describing a 10 mile trip - ugh! Damn publishers!

 

[Brian G Turner]

This is an area where an editor can be especially helpful - it can be so hard to see your own writing errors, so a third-party pointing out where the prose can be tightened is so helpful.

 

[ralphkern]

I have increasingly grown to associate tightness with skill. The best of which can combine plot drivers, character, world building, and exposition to explain that world within the same passage. I hope I've become better at that, and am quietly pleased with seeing how my latest WIP has evolved from my earlier novels in that regards, but I can still see within my work the division of those functions.

Peter Cawdron is the best I've read in rolling all of those into one. In a couple of paragraphs, he transmits everything in beautiful prose what it would still take me a couple of pages. And crucially nothing is lost and much is gained in terms of pacing. It so happens, that Pete often has big enough stories to tell to then re-expand that back out into 300-400 page stories anyway.

As a result of seeing his stuff especially, I have become far less fixated on my own word count, and on the flip side, looking at page count as a test of value. Don't get me wrong, I'd frown on buying a 30 page short stort for £3.99 but, especially if it's from an author I know and trust, they can get away with some very small novel sizes with me.

 

[R.T James]

I'm going to save that article and review it latter. I can see how some skimming could help. I've already focused on redundant sentences when I write in real time.

Issue is I'm not the best with grammar as where I grew up grammar wasn't even a blimp on the educational radar!

Heck neither was teaching boys how to read properly, hence teaching myself via a gameboy. It's a bit pathetic that Nintendo taught me more than my public education.

 

[Cathbad]

It's a bit pathetic that Nintendo taught me more than my public education.

I feel 'ya (sort of). After we moved to Florida (from Illinois), I quickly learned that, if I wanted to learn anything beyond my 8th grade education, I'd have to teach myself. Thus my first library card.

 

[The Bluestocking]

Jordan is hardly the average book size! 100-page forwards! No, no, no, no. Please don't judge book-size by Jordan!

This. Epic Fantasy skews LOOOOONG. (Well, Epic Fantasy and Alan Moore and his 1-million page opus or monstrosity depending on who you talking to).

Most other genres are somewhere between 300 - 400 pages, yo!

 

[DelActivisto]

This. Epic Fantasy skews LOOOOONG. (Well, Epic Fantasy and Alan Moore and his 1-million page opus or monstrosity depending on who you talking to).

Most other genres are somewhere between 300 - 400 pages, yo!

Ya'll short-winded! Haha, not really. 100k words is a right challenge to get to and have it read nicely.

 

[The Bluestocking]

Ya'll short-winded! Haha, not really. 100k words is a right challenge to get to and have it read nicely.

Well, not really - as a writer, if anything, I tend to err on the long-winded side. My current WIP is in fair danger of running over 100K (and I'll have to pare it back to 90K. Because it's an urban fantasy/horror/thriller mash-up) and my current short story may stretch to 10K instead of the original 6K planned.

As a reader, I read fast and have a lot of patience and enthusiasm for long-running series where each book is about 400 pages and the story runs up to 20 books in the series.

But unless an Epic Fantasy or Urban Fantasy author is extremely good (a la Steven Erikson or Karen Chance or Faith Hunter), I do not relish having to wade through a 600 - 800 page book. A book of that size certainly turns draggy at some point if not written as tightly as needed (*Tom Bombadil cough cough*)

So my thing is - I love to read long involved stories but broken up into fast-paced manageable books. 400 pages is plenty good for most people.

 

[DelActivisto]

Well, not really - as a writer, if anything, I tend to err on the long-winded side. My current WIP is in fair danger of running over 100K (and I'll have to pare it back to 90K. Because it's an urban fantasy/horror/thriller mash-up) and my current short story may stretch to 10K instead of the original 6K planned.

As a reader, I read fast and have a lot of patience and enthusiasm for long-running series where each book is about 400 pages and the story runs up to 20 books in the series.

But unless an Epic Fantasy or Urban Fantasy author is extremely good (a la Steven Erikson or Karen Chance or Faith Hunter), I do not relish having to wade through a 600 - 800 page book. A book of that size certainly turns draggy at some point if not written as tightly as needed (*Tom Bombadil cough cough*)

So my thing is - I love to read long involved stories but broken up into fast-paced manageable books. 400 pages is plenty good for most people.

My WIP is up to 110k words and probably won't be done for another 20-30k words. And I've already ditched roughly 30k words of the story. Talk about tightening! That translates, I think, to roughly 315 pages of an average paperback sized novel.

So it will be longer than usual for a first time novel, but epic fantasy tends to be forgiving in that manner due to the story building required. Everything is different in epic fantasy, usually an entirely different world to be described and imagined.

 

[Vaz]

It depends on the book and the Author, really.

Could some of G.R.R. ASoIAF be tightened up and still retain the experience - in my opinion, yes.

Try cutting something from Mervyn Peake's glorious word sauce that is Gormenghast and you end up diluting the experience.

v