U is for Understated

When I am writing I have a bad habit of over-egging it!

I seem to adopt my old Sales training philosophy of ‘tell ‘em once, tell ‘em twice, tell ‘em three times!’

Now I have read books where this does happen. Currently I am reading a novel by William Nicholson and in one chapter he writes the same passage three times to good effect and it works for him because he has spaced it well and used the overemphasis with dramatic intent.

So I am aiming to improve my brevity and not go overboard with giving my reader more information than is truly needed, to make sense of the action.

During writing group last week one of the guys read out a short sentence that I had written and I cringed! I really had 'over-egged' it and as I heard him it read out loud, it made me laugh and I promised to remove the superfluous words.

I did that as soon as I got home!