FROM BRYAN
They say it's good to cut things out in the rewrite, that it tightens the story up and makes reading it easier. Well, I pulled out the ol' scissors a few hours ago, and have sinced turned in to a raving, cut-happy maniac! The more I look at the damn thing, the more stuff I want to edit out, and I can't tell whether I'm making my poor, long-suffering short story any better.
Have you ever had this problem? What did you do?
And by the way, how's this for an opening paragraph?
After promising to arrive at noon with some of the money and an explanation about the rest, Boris still hadn't called by dinnertime. Now, as a purple summer evening stole over Tbilisi, Nana sat at her kitchen table, one tiny foot folded under her, the other, porcelain-white and shod in an imitation Dolce & Gabana slipper, beating out an insistent tattoo on the floor tiles. Every now and then, in a voice that seemed too big for such a small woman, she threw her head back and called out to her husband Merab, who was smoking on the balcony.
RESPONSE
If your base story is great, I vote for getting as many words as possible out of the way so people can see it. Visit "About Hammer & Tongs" for some good suggestions on how to do that. If you put those principles into practice, editing gets easier and faster, and pretty soon, you'll find yourself editing as you write. The great thing about good, clean writing is that it makes other problems stand out that aren't so readily spotted. Things like contradictions, poor characterization, or implausible situations seem to pop out more when the writing itself is clean. In many ways, good writing reveals whether your story is good or not, but bad writing buries a good story or makes a bad story worse. So learn how to edit well.
As to your opening paragraph, you appear to exhibit a mannerism I call "frontloading". That is, you pile a bunch of words at the head of each sentence before you finally reach the subject and verb.
You can't fold a foot under you; you want to say "leg", and if she is a small woman, it's doubtful her foot could reach the floor tiles with her leg folded beneath her, unless she's sitting on a very short chair. I think you want "tapping" instead of "beating", and I think you may want to lose "tattoo". Only a select group of people would be acquainted with that meaning of the word. Most would probably think she’s making some kind of mark on the floor tiles or might consider it a gaffe even though it isn't.