4 Questions to Strengthen Lean Manuscripts | Jane Friedman

But over the years, I've found writers with similar struggles. I'm not the only one who starts with a lean first draft that needs to be built up to create a well-rounded story. Neither way of writing is right or wrong-it's truly about what works for you and your process. The important thing is that you understand your genre's word count expectations and why those expectations exist and that you put in the work to add or cut words to create a deep story.

While writing lean can sometimes feel like it's wrong approach, there's absolutely value in it. Writing a lean first draft allows you to see the main points and events that are most central to the story and work to enhance them, rather than having to uncover those main points underneath a mountain of excess words. I'm often told my writing is clear and easy to follow, which I credit to the fact that I write lean initially and build the story from there.