Professor Ron
August 9, 2000
7:49 a.m.
The woman looked around the room expectantly. "I'm trying to make it a thousand words." Eight other new writers looked at her. "You could cut out a couple in this sentence," another woman said. She pointed to the manuscript wherein a country/western dark fantasy was defined. Several others had comments. These were new writers in my hometown--very few published in any way. Maybe none, I honestly don't remember -- though that makes me feel bad to admit it. I should remember what other people have done. "Why do you want to make it a thousand words?" I finally asked. "That's the assignment. I need to write a thousand word story." I looked at the manuscript. It was already too sketchy. Transitions were rough, characters undefined, and the ending had nothing to do with the beginning (and of course visa versa). "Write another story," I said. "But I need to turn it in." "Find an hour, and write a thousand word story. This isn't it." Others chimed in with ways to cut the story down. "No," I said. "This cannot be a thousand word story. It has ... " (I paused to count) " ... seven scenes. It's not a thousand word story. Now, I understand that you need to hit a deadline, but hitting a deadline with a terrible story doesn't do you or your reader -- be they a teacher or an editor or a real reader -- any good at all. Write another story." "Well," the writer said. "It was 4,000 words before I cut it down. And I don't like it as much now." I looked her straight in the eye. "Don't let anyone who's not paying you make you do anything to a story that makes you feel worse about it. And even then you have to think about it really hard." Writing's hard enough as it is, you know? We don't need anyone's help to feel bad about our work. I didn't say much after that. But I think she went away to write another story.   Have a great day.  How many Ron's does it take to ruin a writer? Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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