That moment when an anonymous wombat has been watching you edit for the last 20 minutes…
“Why are they finding this so interesting? Oh…”
And then you realize you left the Google Doc open in another browser window.
Absolutely nothing worse than watching an anonymous person lurking in your doc. The fear is justified!
Okay, I’m done throwing shade at the wombat…
First chapter fumble: I had to throw out ~1,000 words.
At first, the hefty word count of my opening chapter had me doing a happy dance. It felt like a solid start! It was impressive! But upon closer inspection, I realized it was bogged down. While I love crafting each sentence with care, sometimes it leads me to take a scenic route. In this case, the scenic route went on for about a thousand words too long. So, I streamlined. I threw out a thousand words.
Then I listened to a podcast.
Matt Haig drops a writing truth bomb (and validates my process).
The podcast with Matt Haig was a goldmine for this writer! The international bestseller just dropped a truth bomb that felt exactly like coming home for me. Forget the whole "first draft, second draft, third draft" editing cycle. Haig says the first draft of his novel is the manuscript. No endless revisions before it goes to his editor.
This aligns perfectly with how I’ve always felt about writing. The idea of spending months crafting something I knew I’d "really" write later in revisions never sat right with me. Haig's approach makes so much sense—write one draft and make it the best you possibly can from the beginning.
This doesn't mean there's no room for revisions – hello, editors! But it flips the script on the whole first-draft-as-throwaway mentality. Haig's method feels like permission to write with confidence and focus on building a strong foundation right out of the gate. It’s like he peeked into my writer’s brain and put those jumbled thoughts into clear words!
Then he said more words!
Haig talked about his minimalist approach to writing, using only as many words as absolutely necessary. There's definitely a time for description, but not in every sentence. Here's my dirty little secret: I used to think "beautiful sentences" with elaborate descriptions were the hallmark of a good writer. As a reader, though? Three paragraphs about a meadow? Skim city. Give me the plot, the action, the juicy bits! I'm here for the raunchy love scene or the murder weapon, not the flowery prose.
“With a death grip on the uneven brick, his ill-fitting trousers, a faded patchwork of denim and despair, threatened a gravity-defying escape as he dangled precariously from the dizzying peak of the twenty-foot wall. Would his grip hold, or would he plummet to the unforgiving earth below, leaving nothing behind but a memory and a fashion faux pas for the ages?”
Gorgeous writing, but…
“His sagging pants barely clung to his hips as he dangled from the twenty-foot wall.” Gets the job done!
It’s time I ditch the purple prose.
Less can be more, and Haig confirmed my own suspicion: focus on the story, not the frills. I may be a skimmer as a reader, but I don’t want that for my own readers. From now on, I’m embracing the power of concise prose.
And this is where I’m at. A thousand words deleted, the reader thrust into the action, and I’ve stripped the purple prose away – no skimming allowed on my watch. Thank you, Matt Haig!
And so begins chapter two… onward!