by Janis Patterson
I had a revelation while working on an upcoming project. I needed
a snippet out of each of my books that could be narrated in five minutes.
Five minutes is not a long time.
The first excerpt I tried ran almost fifteen minutes. The
second twenty. The third... well, suffice it to say it was not five minutes.
None of the passages I had marked were. Oh, I tried to cut back, but what was
left - though five to five and a half minutes - was nothing. A collection of
words without direction or emotion.
Now for years I have been complimented on my writing, on my
creation of emotion and sense of place. Apparently I just don't do it in five
minute slots.
Which started me thinking. We have become a sound-bite society,
where a maximum of opinion is expected to be expressed in a minimum of words or
be cut off. Where entire opinions are encapsulated into thirty seconds.
Apparently the long, slow, intensifying build-up that gradually takes you to a satisfying
conclusion (even if just for a single scene) is out of fashion.
It's rather like comparing the short, often-repeating core
melody of a pop song to the growing, sweeping intensity of a symphony movement.
Or a lengthy master shot in a movie compared to short bursts of action like the
cuts in a music video. Both styles have their advantages, both are good, and
both have their supporters and their detractors.
I'll admit I'm firmly set in the sweeping grandeur of the
symphony camp. Short flashes are very well, but you barely have time to know
what's going on where let alone get the flavor, the emotion, the sense of place
I feel is necessary for a good story. Obviously some people disagree with me,
including the project coordinator who is firm in her dictum of five minutes, which
means I have to dig deeper in order to find an excerpt that satisfies me at a
length which satisfies everyone else.
Sigh.
5 comments:
Your question, "How long should an excerpt be?" reminds me of another question I've run into a time or two: "How long should a short story be?" The answer is the same for both: "As long as it needs to be." That's why I've written short stories as long as ten thousand words and as short as six words. The rule should be to keep typing until it's done, and not a syllable more.
I agree with Earl.
Earl, Marilyn, I agree with you. Something should be just as long as it needs to be... except when it is appearing in another medium, a medium that is strictly controlled. I've always written to the demands of the scene, but as this after publication project is timed, I'm having to adjust, and it isn't easily.
Janis, I love this post. Yes, I agree with everyone else. You can cut out what's not needed, but I think you always need to put in every necessary word for what that excerpt or segment needs to do. You may even need one or two unnecessary words just to make it flow better.
Enough to get them begging for more.
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