C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

In a recent short story I wrote a bag lady asks a city social worker, “You trying to convert me to Buddha, Jesus, Allah or L. Ron Hubbard?”

My first reader went over the story and rightly pointed out what I’d missed in subsequent drafts. There was something more to omit. I was treating readers like idiots and spoon-feeding them. The quote in the final draft was the same, but I cut one word: “Hubbard.”

Scientology is plenty well-known thanks to Tom Cruise. There’s no need to hit the reader over the head. The tendency to over-explain betrays a lack of confidence in the writer-reader connection.

I won’t explicate further.

Filed under: rules of writing, editing