In the thirty-odd years I've been writing, I've gotten two great pieces of advice in my life. One came from a professor at San Francisco State University: "If it still makes you cry, then it's not ready." Meaning that writing may be an emotional act, but it also requires a certain detachment that allows objectivity. Or, to put it another way, you're going to have to "kill your darlings" eventually. It was strong advice that I've taken with me since.
The second advice came from an unlikely and unexpected source. She wasn't a writer, budding or experienced, but she had keen insight into what she considered good writing.
For one year, I worked at a store in Berkeley that sold and rented audio-books to subscribers. It was appropriately called Talking Book World. When I started working there, I had just ended my first semester in college and had signed up for a summer class. Seventeen years after I had graduated from high school, working one dead-end job after the next and struggling to finish a novel that was driving me nuts, I decided I was ready for college. If I was going to go crazy I might as well do it among like-minded people. At the very least, I could pursue a degree in English lit and a better job. But I still had to work.
My hours at Talking Book World were part-time. The pay was barely minimum wage, but it was better than most that I've had in the past. I had the run of the store to myself and could listen to any of the audio-books I wanted on the boombox behind the counter. I have a fond memory of listening to Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier one Sunday afternoon when a storm broke. Torrential rain fell in heavy sheets beyond the tall plate-glass windows. The main avenue downtown was eerily empty. It was the perfect atmosphere for du Maurier's creepy thriller.
It was easy to see why customers were enthusiastic audio-book lovers. Being read to is the perfect comfort food. For the store's subscribers it certainly made the daily slog in Bay Area traffic less boring. But for one subscriber they were more than that.
I was on my usual weekend shift when she––let's call her Darlene––came in. She was one of the store's premiere subscribers. She'd never dropped by during the weekend shifts while I worked there, though I recognized her immediately. I had met her the year before during my first day of training when she picked up a few books to rent. My manager informed me confidentially that she was a nurse in the children's cancer ward at the local hospital. Listening to audio-books kept her from going insane.
Darlene wore a sweater over hospital scrubs and soft-soled sneakers. She was short and middle-aged, but had a commanding demeanor. I imagine she wasn't the type to take crap from arrogant doctors. She had at once seemed intimidating, yet approachable.
She approached the counter with a bag of ten audio-books to return and ten more to rent. I wondered how she found the time to read them all. While I checked out the books she rented, we fell into an easy conversation. We talked about the fiction she loved reading––mostly escapist fare like James Lee Burke's crime fiction and, if the fancy struck her or if nothing else was available, Judith Krantz romance novels. Considering how much of an emotional drain her work was, I thought her choice of crime fiction was interesting.
She had no tolerance for abridged audio-books. The store had its share of those. She mentioned there was one particular book she was interested in, but decided against checking it out because it was abridged. She said this, not so much as a complaint, but an observation, or perhaps as a suggestion that the store should stock more unabridged audio-books. Since my main responsibility was to encourage buyers to become rental subscribers, I wanted to practice my powers of persuasion, such as they were, on her. Instead, we debated the merits of abridgments.
I thought it didn't matter. As long as the heart of the story was still there, what difference did it make if a few filler scenes were cut out?
"It's like cutting the fat off a piece a meat. You get a leaner story," I said.
She had an entirely different take, however: "Yeah, but here's the thing, it's the fat that gives it flavor."
I started to counter, but was struck speechless. Having written a novel that had reached, at one point, over 100,000 words, I was consciously aware of my own struggles with economy and precision. But Darlene wasn't a writer, but a reader who knew what she wanted from stories. She wanted the spaces in between the plot, the fat that gave it authenticity, and built a world she could recognize as her own.
Isn't that what we all want?
She was right. The spaces in between the plot give an authenticity, meaning, and emotion to stories that draw in readers. Darlene wasn't looking for escapism, but a way back into reality, a way to make sense of the world she faced every morning she woke up, put on her scrubs, and drove to work to care for those young children whose lives and deaths had touched her and become a meaningful part of her life.
Really, isn't that what all readers want?
I nodded in agreement and thanked her.
Though I never saw Darlene again, her unwitting advice stayed with me. When I revise my stories I try to remind myself: Spare some of the fat. It's their flavor that makes the stories real.
This essay was originally published in my Substack newsletter, The Portal.