I received the new SCBWI bulletin in the mail today and was pleased to see an article of mine in it. Usually they have one or two of my pieces sitting around, already purchased, but I never know when they’ll end up in a bulletin, so it’s always a surprise. Anyway, the article is called Learning From Other Genres and is, as the title suggests, all about how studying other genres, like playwriting and screenwriting can help your fiction writing.
When I first submitted this piece, it was really, really long and the editor told me they’d like it if I could cut it in half. So I did and they did and all was well. What made me laugh today is that the article is a two-page spread, with a very cute illustration and a very large headline/title. The reason this made me laugh is because prior to cutting over 16k words from my novel, I might have thought when I saw this, “Well, they could’ve taken it as written since they had room for a two-page spread.” but the new me, the one who has learned that extra words drag things down, was simply grateful that the editor at SCBWI made me trim it because now it is tight, to the point, and hopefully readers will stick with it, rather than give up half way through!
When I told my agent that I have a tendency towards repetition, he kindly said, “you just like words”. Maybe so, but I’m starting to like them more when there are fewer of them. Hmmm…maybe there’s another SCBWI article in this post!
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