Before I get to the actual point of my post, I want to take a second to Fan-Girl squee . . .Only 7 more days until Last Sacrifice (final chapter in the Vampire Academy series) is released. Booyah!! (edit: you'd think someone who was squeeing wouldn't type the wrong title)
Okay, I swear, it’s out of my system now.
Teeheeee!!
Okay, no really, I’m done.
*focus, Tracy, focus*
Overwriting.
That’s the number one complaint we hear from editors, agents, fellow writers & sometimes even ourselves. They say the fastest way to kill a great idea is to overwrite it.
What they don't do is tell us a surefire way to spot when we're doing it.
It’s not always about using an abundance of adverbs & adjectives, or spending too much time describing the scenery. Sometimes we try so hard to put a fresh new spin on things we create convoluted sentences that would sound much better if we simplified them.
I wish I had some steadfast rule to dole out on how to avoid going overboard, but I can be just as guilty as the next person. I’ve only found, for me, one tried and true method for detecting when my writing crosses the line into too much.
I read it out loud . . . and if I start sounding like a stand-in for the movie trailer voice-over guy, odds are good I've run into some serious overwriting. No lie.
In a world where Tracy tries to drum up too much drama, in a time fraught with good thoughts that fall short of reaching their potential, only one thing stands in her way. . . Over-Writing.
