Less Is More

My always lovely sister-friend, Noelle, recently posted a blog about enough being enough. She was talking about Identity Thief, but then tied it in rather nicely with writing and adding useless things to your plot only to make it more convoluted and, in turn, less awesome.

It reminds me of the time I was chatting with my writing partner and friend, Missy, about this new work in progress. It was super awesome, then all of a sudden she added dragons into an already complex enough plot. We call it the time she went high fantasy, and we don't talk about it often.

Usually, we back peddle, and, hopefully come to our senses and take out the subplot about gremlins and why it is important to recycle. Or, if we don't clue in ourselves, we have someone in our inner circle who will tell us that less is more, and to take the gremlins and moral subplot out.

But, it seems, a lot of people don't have the back peddling moment, or the friend who will tell them they have gone too far. I know this because I am reviewing books now. I am, by no means, an expert, but so many of the books submitted cause me to raise an eyebrow, or two. Honestly, they start out promising, quirky and original and then, out of nowhere, with absolutely no warning, there is an underground subspecies of humans who are breeding hybrid dogs programed to eat the children of prominent political figures. Okay, that might have been a hyperbolic example, but you get the gyst.

It is most frustrating, really.

It's like when I am at the second hand store and find the most perfect pair of jeans. They hug my thighs, hold my ass up and don't give me muffin top. Then I turn around and the pockets are bedazzled to shit with rhinestones and spell out the word juicy or phat. Or there's lace for no reason, or embroidery. How annoying.

I think you all know what I mean.