There is a version of this book with three more pages of mountains in it. I know, because I wrote them.
Description is where I lose readers. Not all readers — but the ones I am writing for. The ones who put a book down at page eleven and never pick it up again. Every paragraph that stops the story is a place they leave.
So the rule became simple. If a sentence does not move somebody, it goes.
Not because careful writing is bad. Because finishing is better.
