The wonderful delete button!

I still read the occasional writing blog because learning is good and I need to refresh what I know until it is totally but totally fixed in my head. This morning I found Ruth Harris's piece on deleting....https://annerallen.com/2019/01/stephen-kings-10-rule/] and it is well worth reading. Amusing as well as informative.

· Skillful use of the delete button will help you show instead of tell. 

· Will add to the page-turning quality of your book. 

· Will help create books readers stay up late to finish. 


She quotes Stephen King’s 10% Rule. From Stephen King’s On Writing:

“In the spring of my senior year at Lisbon High—1966, this would have been—I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote 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%. Good luck.”

“I wish I could remember who wrote that note—Algis Budrys, perhaps. Whoever it was did me a hell of a favor. I copied the formula out on a piece of shirt-cardboard and taped it to the wall beside my typewriter. Good things started to happen for me shortly thereafter.”
I think I'm going to do the same. How about you?