The Magical World of Writing

My best friend in high school took creative writing. I took physics and calculus. She is now a biology instructor, and I am a fledgling copy-editor and aspiring writer. We always comment on how weird that is when we talk.

After working on the same short story off and on for *cough* 2 years, I finally finished it. There was a beginning, a middle, and—most importantly, an end. I had pared it down, weighing the usefulness of each word, and was very pleased with the end result.

My lovely husband (L.H.) had read through it and made comments and suggestions until he was sick of it. Luckily for me, my dear friend (D.F.)—7 months pregnant and with an older child to take care of, and student-teaching to boot—graciously agreed to be a reader. Not only did she have her own creative writing experience (and formal instruction) to refer to, but she herself had been a fantasy fan back in the day. So she was familiar with the conventions of the genre I write in.

And, she's the most tactful and clear-spoken person I know. Must come from explaining the intricacies of the human body to numbskulls like me.

All wrapped up in a warm fuzzy about how she likes my writing—I tell you, she's the best!—she suggests that I flesh out the world in which the story is set. I set to work adding details. Then I see one bit that's kind of awkward and unnecessary. *snip* I prune it. Then I realize that some parts are repetitive. I analyze; I make notes; I tweak. Finally, I realize that if I'm going to do the story justice, I must write it again from scratch.

"What?!" you might say. "After 2+ years of work?"

Indeed. I realized that the story had so many parts I wanted to alter that it was almost a different story. Here's the way I've been thinking about it: it's like trying to put last year's dress on a 13-year-old girl. No matter what I do to it, the dress is not going to fit right. And even if I make a new dress, there's every chance that it won't fit next year, because she'll have continued to grow and develop. I think that's the point I'm at with my writing in general, and this story in particular.

So D.F.—it's all your fault! Just kidding. I may have needed someone to adjust my blinders so I could see what was missing from the story, but it's totally up to me to see if the story is everything I want it to be. And it isn't. Not yet, anyhow. But I feel like it's well on its way.