MESSAGE #808 - HOW TO BE THE NEXT STEPHEN KING

Mostly when I think
of pacing,
I go back to
Elmore Leonard,
who explained it
so perfectly
by saying
he just left out
the boring parts.
This suggests cutting
to speed the pace,
and that’s
what most of us
end up having to do
(kill your darlings,
kill your darlings,
even when it breaks
your egocentric
little scribbler’s heart,
kill your darlings) . . .
I got a scribbled comment
that changed
the way I wrote
my fiction
once and forever.
Jotted below
the machine-generated
signature of the editor
was this mot:
“Not bad, but PUFFY.
You need to revise
for length.
Formula:
2nd draft = 1st draft – 10%.”

Stephen King
writer