Just because there's a hole, it doesn't mean you have to fill it

Tonight I spent the better part of an hour on the phone with my father, trying to trouble shoot his technical issues. For a couple of years, now, he has had issues with different Roku streaming boxes. They freeze up, take up to an hour to reboot, crash constantly. I live nearly 200 miles away so this gets more than a bit frustrating. I have spent so much time trying to talk him through the resetting procedures. He has returned devices under warranty. I had him check his electric outlet, test for stray voltage on the phone line used for his DSL connection. It was puzzling, to say the least. Then, tonight, I suddenly said "Wait, do you have an SD card in your Roku?" Yep. It was a cheap PNY card with a slow write speed. Notorious for corrupting when used in demanding electronics. Removed, reset, bingo!

This whole episode became a metaphor for me as I entered into edits on my Work in Progress today. My grammar is fairly acceptable but the one problem I have is being over descriptive and repeating myself every few chapters, as if reminding the audience of what had happened in prior scenes. In short, I treat the reader like they are a moron. Not a great approach to writing. So I have been cleaning that up, cleaning up exposition that tries to tie the loose ends together for the reader.

I ended up telling myself the same thing I told my dad, "Just because there's a space for something doesn't mean that you have to fill it. The Roku operates just fine without an SD card. My story will operate just fine without me going overkill on explaining everything. There has to be something left to the imagination or else the story isn't really worth reading, is it?

I know that I didn't intend to write the story that way, so what happened? I tend to write in chunks, somewhere between 1200 and 2000 words per day. So I think I was rehashing subject matter to refresh my own memory again.

So, lesson of the day: Don't be afraid to leave something to the imagination. I think it was Bob Ross who said that the empty space in a painting is sometimes more important than what is there.*



*Please don't quote me on that. It's late and I have a ginger cat's rear end in my face.