As I began my journalistic journey, my thoughts were of telling a great story in easy to understand, yet compelling language. I have always been an avid reader. As a reader, I grow weary of the three and four page descriptions of a formal dining room scene. I wanted to skip most of the description and get to the people angle of the story, which I did and still do, most of the time.
Long descriptions were necessary in the pre-television era. Many readers in that era had never seen an elegant formal dining room, for example. That is why the lengthy descriptions were necessary. Since television and the Internet have blossomed, a reader seldom needs the writer to describe the dinning room down to the last bud vase.
After all, isn’t a story about people reacting to other people, with a brief description of where they are and what they are doing?
With this in mind, I write my stories for people who share my reader’s philosophy. You will find brief descriptions, which are enough to understand where the characters are and what they are doing. You will also understand how they look and their characteristics. However, you will not have to go through four pages of description to find a little dialogue. Rather, it will be the other way around.
I was watching a movie one evening. The setting was an elegant dining room. The eight characters were dressed in black tie, tails, and beautiful evening gowns. With this mixed company of gentlemen and ladies, one of the men used the “F” word. The others at the table ignored it; after all it was only in the movie script. Would you have used that word in those circumstances? I wouldn’t! I don’t use that kind of language in my writing, either.
My novels are powerful stories of human conflict. INTEGRITY is not just a word to my protagonists; it is their philosophy. My dialogue is compelling and fast reading, and not riddled with bad language.
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