Skeleton Keys | Writing Is Easy (Mark Twain)

Writing is easy. Ah, Mark Twain. I’m not sure if you meant to make us laugh or cry with that one. Probably both. Both is good.

Writing Is Easy. In a nutshell, it is. You tell the story as completely, as honestly as you can. You get the words down. You do the work. You let it rest.

Writing Is Easy… um, Not. Then, you follow Hannibal Lecter’s sterling example, sheathe yourself in a plastic suit, set aside your literary morality, and start cutting on your baby. Stephen King gave me some great advice once – not to me personally, but in his book On Writing, which I recommend. Goes something like this:

10%. Aim to reduce your total word count by 10%. Every book has that much filler in it. Trust me, it does. Every word that isn’t helping your story is either hurting your story or standing by rubbernecking while the other ones do.

Maybe, Mr. Twain, you should have said, “Writing is simple.” Yes, it’s as simple as cutting out words. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Then again, there are a lot of writers on Twitter…

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