THE 10% SOLUTION
Problem: your editor wants you to cut your 1,000 page novel or nonfiction book to 800 pages.
Problem: an editor wants your short story, article or essay, but you wrote 3,000 words and she wants 2,700. Problem: you get rejection slips with cryptic handwritten notes: “didn’t grab me,” “seemed to drag,” “rambling,” or words to that effect. Problem: your stuff isn’t selling. Problem: you’re just not writing at all.
Solution: you’re holding it.
The Ten Percent Solution is an editing tool I’ve found useful—indispensable—for writing prose; fiction and nonfiction, any genre, any length, whether for publication or not (the process works for memos, queries, outlines and novel synopses, sales letters, papers and essays). It can help any writer, newbie or pro, make whatever she or he writes more accurate, more clear and crisp, more vivid, more compelling, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter. Whatever you have to say, you’ll say better with The Ten Percent Solution.
If you’re trying to sell your prose, it can help you sell sooner, more often, for more money, and to bigger markets.
If you think you’re a slow writer, it can help you write faster.
If you suffer from writer’s block, it can help you become more productive, resulting in fewer false starts and more stories or articles finished.
Big claims for a small book.
I use The Ten Percent Solution daily, and I back my claims for its efficacy with more than thirty years experience as a freelance writer, staff writer and copywriter for radio, newspapers, newsletters, magazines, advertisers and news networks; as an editor for newspapers, magazines and newsletters; as a reporter for radio stations, newspapers and news networks; as a PR flack for politicians, daredevil shows and government agencies, and as an announcer and PR flack for stockcar races, daredevil shows, mudbogs, air shows and sports events. I’ve written more than a hundred short stories, a dozen novels, several nonfiction books, 200 humor columns, scores of interviews, and thousands of articles.
Some things The Ten Percent Solution can’t do. It doesn’t address concepts like character, theme, plot, structure and so on. You’ll have to look elsewhere to master those concepts. I assume you have, or are trying to.
It also doesn’t apply to poetry or to film, stage or radio scripts. The reason should become clear as you read on.
I took years to develop this technique, but you don’t have to take as long. You don’t have to be a reporter, editor, PR flack, copywriter, or ad peddler to learn how to use it.
In fact, as soon as you finish this book, you can try the process on your own writing, test its usefulness against your own needs and desires. Read the whole book through before you try to use the techniques described.
Most writers can get something from the process, some more than others. Newbies can get something because they haven’t yet been brainwashed with a zillion versions of “The One True Way,” so they’re more open to possibilities. Old pros can get something out of this idea because they know writing school is never out. There’s always something more to learn. That’s one of the fun things about this business. Who knows where the next lesson will come from or how valuable it might be?
Still, I expect nobody will use it entirely. Some will use 90 percent, others maybe ten percent.
The Ten Percent Solution isn’t meant to be gospel. It’s not written in stone. In fact, I modify it for my own use from time to time, and I’ll probably do so again. It’s a tool, not a school. It’s modular. You adapt the process to your own methods, style and goals, and you adjust it from project to project. Use what you want, discard the rest. Customize it.
This is a “how-to” book, a practical work manual. Theory supports practice, so the book is divided into two sections, theory and practice, to help you better understand how the two aspects relate. Theory comes first.