Friday, January 27, 2012

Overheard #180

The more words I take out, the better my writing is.

3 comments:

Wyman Stewart said...

Making the blank page the perfect story. No wonder I've never achieved perfection in my writing!

TimInMich said...

When we were discussing this at crit group, I kept thinking of a science fiction story from decades ago. It posited that, because toilet paper and checks often tear someplace besides the perforations, the more you remove, the stronger paper becomes. (Probably one-ply. I have that problem with cheap paper towels, which I don't buy now.) Until you have an invisible, immeasurably strong substance!
I managed to track down most of a story online: "It Was Nothing, Really!" by Theodore Sturgeon. It's not so much a story as a poke at the military-industrial complex in the mid-60's.
I read that long ago, but it wasn't the story I was thinking of. I swear there's another piece along those lines that's more of a story. "The Thin Edge of Nothing" is the title that came to me, but I couldn't find a sci-fi story called that.

Ruth McNally Barshaw said...

The Thin Edge of Nothing is a great title for a novel!