The Art of Brevity

Pacific Beach locals don't need a caption.

In my art work and graphic design, I pride myself on my ability to capture some thought or emotion through a clean, simple image.  It comes natural to me.  It is how I think.  The watercolor to the right is a good example.  Locals love it.  They know where it is and that, even though it's a street sign, it represents a particular beach spot.  They know I frequent that spot.  They know it's a simple representation of a place, a love for that place, and it means I'm a local, too.  I get brevity in my art.

But, when I write, I want to explain everything.  I want to make sure everyone understands exactly what I mean.  And, unfortunately, that can mean I am not giving the reader enough credit to draw his or her own conclusions.

I was reminded of this and of the need for brevity this week as I have been polishing two short works, with the help of my friend of 25+ years, Christa, who is a wonderful writer with far more experience than I have (http://www.christalestelasserre.com).  She responded to my two projects with great advice about brevity and getting to the heart of the story, and it allowed me to see what I needed to do to make some key changes.   Perhaps even complete overhauls.

One of my projects is a 500 word short story submission, and the other is a twelve line children's poem I intend to illustrate into a book.  It's close to midnight, and I am finally pretty happy with my work.  But, it has taken more hours over the last several days than 500 words should.  In a story that short, each word, each phrase has to be carefully thought out and placed for maximum impact.  Each image, like a biblical parable, must be relied on to teach more about the story than the few words used to describe it.  The beauty of simple imagery is that it can hold different meaning for different people, and all interpretations can be correct.  As I begin to edit the larger manuscript from which this short story was taken, I am now asking myself how many of those words I need to keep.  How many are absolutely necessary?  I fear I have a lot more editing in store than I originally imagined.  That said, I am looking forward to paring down to the heart of the story.  It is my story--my memoir, and I don't want it muddled with distracting thoughts that serve as smoke and mirrors to lure the reader away from what he or she should be analyzing.  It is a tactic I have often used in my own life so others don't see what is really there.  And that goes against the whole purpose of this memoir.  It is not to conceal.  It is to capture the essence of these memories so I can lay them to rest and move on.  And I don't want to string that out any longer than is absolutely necessary.