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| With apologies to the 1961 American musical romantic drama directed by Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins |
Please write those thoughts up, for another column in this informative and thought-provoking series, “Side Story.” (And be sure to accumulate your word count.) —Moristotle
Reply by Paul Clark (aka motomynd)
Word count: the bane of writers, editors, photographers—and readers. How many words does it take to tell a story? Answering that is like trying to find the end of a circle. (32)
In my career, I worked as a writer, editor, and photographer. Magazines were laid out on “boards” and everything had to fit. As a writer, every word was critical: All had to stay. As an editor, every word was expendable: Delete as needed. As a photographer, every word meant my photos were smaller: Cut all the words, just run photos and captions. If someone bought a huge last-minute ad, we were all screwed, everything got chopped to make room: Money matters. (115)
For Moristotle, I came up with the idea of what became “Side Story” and what was supposed to be 125-250 word “quick hit” pieces. In my first effort I blew the word count by nearly 100%: hitting a word count is hard. (158)
How many words does it take to tell a story? If I could choose, the perfect word count for romance novels and how-to golf stories would be: Zero. Millions of upscale golfers who just know they can be the next Tiger Woods if only they could read the latest tip disagree with me. Ditto for millions of American women who manage to have 2.3 babies despite apparently knowing only the basics about sex: 50 Shades, Exhibit A. People writing romance novels and how-to golf stories are doing quite well, and I’m…uhmmm…writing this. (251)
So what happens in digital media if we adopt a strict word count of plus or minus 50 words? Is the story told? Or does it end badly? “After months of pursuing, there she was, in his bedroom, perfect in her swimsuit. She smiled and began to untie (300)
| Copyright © 2020 by Moristotle, Paul Clark |
A gem!
ReplyDeleteMy take from this Paul and I may have missed the point altogether; is that you can write 250 or lass words and get in all the facts, but it takes more words than that to tell the whole story.My story about the dogs: I could have left out the part about the Cascara trees and other details but would it have been the same story? It would have answered your question about the dogs. Which as I kook back on that story and I have never thought about this before, I wonder if that encounter had more to do about territory than hunting us?
ReplyDeleteEd, now that you mention it, if the dogs were truly wild and used to living without human intervention, that incident may indeed have been about them protecting their turf from you, rather than trying to hunt you. Most attacks by wild animals are about such, rather than hunting people for food. That might also explain my other unasked question: how did you manage to outrun a pack of dogs? Answer: maybe they weren't trying to catch you. Ha
DeleteI love juxtapositions, and this one is truly a gem, with three subjects instead of two. Writer, editor, photographer, each pulling in a different direction. The first answer that came to mind to thee question, how many words does it take, I would have answered simply:as many as it takes. But all I've done is write columns and books. No upper or lower limits on word count, but I have always tried to go by Hemingway's rule. Never use two words when one will do; never use a longer word when a shorter will do. He used it well and faithfully in his short stories, but I for one would have slashed "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by several thousand!
ReplyDeleteRoger, Hemingway really had a rule to never use two words when one would do? As a teen, I read just about everything Hemingway had written, and I would have guessed his rule was closer to 'never use one word, when you can stretch it to a whole paragraph.' Until I read your post, I had never thought about why I quit reading Hemingway: your comment on 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' probably answers that question.
ReplyDelete