delicious_man
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2017
- Posts
- 554
A thread started by _Lynn_ (MistressLynn) challenges writers to expand upon a few lines of dialogue and turn it into a short scene: http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=682782
Her exercise gave me the idea for a different kind of writer’s challenge – essentially the reverse of the above. Instead of expanding upon a few lines, in this exercise I challenge writers to turn several paragraphs into a few lines of concise prose.
When it comes to writing well I believe it is important for every single word to have purpose. This exercise is all about practicing the art of weeding out the superfluous and reducing your text to what's actually required. So sharpen your shears and get ready to prune.
The rules of the exercise are as follows:
1. You begin with a passage of writing that has been set by the challenger. Your task is to reduce their work to a few sentences totalling less than 100 words. Get rid of all the detail that you consider to be surplus to requirements. Do away with any description that is unnecessary and reduce the text to what is required for the scene to work.
2. Now you get to set the next challenge. Compose a scene of around 300 – 500 words in length. Have fun with it. Feel free to waffle and ramble at will so that the next writer has something to work with. The scene you compose may be romantic, erotic or neither of these things. You can use any subject material you like. Just try to be inclusive and come up with something that the next writer might enjoy working with.
Her exercise gave me the idea for a different kind of writer’s challenge – essentially the reverse of the above. Instead of expanding upon a few lines, in this exercise I challenge writers to turn several paragraphs into a few lines of concise prose.
When it comes to writing well I believe it is important for every single word to have purpose. This exercise is all about practicing the art of weeding out the superfluous and reducing your text to what's actually required. So sharpen your shears and get ready to prune.
The rules of the exercise are as follows:
1. You begin with a passage of writing that has been set by the challenger. Your task is to reduce their work to a few sentences totalling less than 100 words. Get rid of all the detail that you consider to be surplus to requirements. Do away with any description that is unnecessary and reduce the text to what is required for the scene to work.
2. Now you get to set the next challenge. Compose a scene of around 300 – 500 words in length. Have fun with it. Feel free to waffle and ramble at will so that the next writer has something to work with. The scene you compose may be romantic, erotic or neither of these things. You can use any subject material you like. Just try to be inclusive and come up with something that the next writer might enjoy working with.