Grammarly Deets #4

I found a quote last week that suits this week's topic. It pretty much covers all points of writing, and how you should divide, share, and conquer! It goes something like this: "Most of your novel should be Action and Dialogue. Description is the dessert. Interior Emotion provides the spice. Interior Monologue is the salt. A little salt goes a long way."

This post is specifically about the details you include in your action, dialogue, description and so on. I'd like to focus on that. Stephen King advises writers to provide enough of those details to make a great story, but always leave the reader something to imagine, to figure out for himself. Reading is an active exercise, not passive, as you should know. You must keep readers guessing, predicting, imagining, and drawing conclusions. That's your objective. You settle for nothing less. (Oh, boy ... those English teacher habits seep out of me on occasion, like now!)

Besides maintaining balance and proper proportion, your story details should be relevant. Otherwise, the story becomes boring, overwhelming, even confusing. And worst of all? The plot slows to a crawl. So slow, a turtle could pass it up in a race! Oh, yeah. That reminds me of yet another piece of advice, a la Stephen King, of course. At all times, and I do mean all, you should be thinking of the plot. The actions, dialogue, inner thoughts, etc. in every way should drive the story toward the plot's resolution and the ending. Your words need to have purpose. It's as simple as that. Okay, maybe not simple to do, but who said writing was easy? 

That's it for this week, folks. Keep on writing, and above all else, enjoy!