The hard part of creating a good story isn’t deciding what to put in. It seems to me that what you leave out matters most.

I read once that Lee Child had to learn to trust the reader. And by that, he meant trust the reader to fill in the details. His opinion was that this involves the reader in the story more than if you spelled it all out. I’ve always felt that way too. But I’m a bit obsessive about clarity, so I tend to overwrite.

Images courtesy of IStock and Southern Living, respectively