The Quick Writing Lesson in The Princess Bride by William Goldman

The writing lesson from William Goldman The Princess Bride is pretty simple.  When it comes to fiction, just write the “good parts.”

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I don’t remember when I read both Marathon Man and The Princess Bride by William Goldman.  It was probably in the middle of the 1980s.  I remember at the time being impressed that Goldman could write two completely different books that were pretty good in their own ways.

Most authors have one genre and beat the crap out of that one genre, and I don’t blame them, especially if their primary goal is to make a lot of money.  Some authors write the same book over and over until readers get tired of it.  

But that’s not my point.

When I first saw this map in the first few pages of The Princess Bride, I focused on the geographical details so that the story would make more sense to me as I read it.  Now that I’m older and don’t care as much about world-building, I pay more attention to the upper right corner.

And that’s where the “good parts” comes from.

At the beginning of The Princess Bride, author William Goldman explains how he tried to have his son read the “original” version of The Princess Bride (the S. Morgenstein version that only the purists can get through), but it was too long, too detailed, and too convoluted for his son to follow.  To make this fairy tale more readable for the average person, Goldman then rewrote it, just leaving in the “good parts.”

William Goldman is on to something here.  If George R.R. Martin had only written the good parts, he probably would have finished his A Song of Ice and Fire series in 2010.

And have you tried reading the S. Morgenstein version of The Princess Bride?  My god, when I finally found my own copy, I made the mistake of trying to read it.  It was almost as tough to get through as Finnegans Wake, and it was ten times longer.  It’s a good thing that Goldman rewrote it because there’s no way that Hollywood would make a movie out of the S. Morgenstein version of The Princess Bride.

An S. Morgenstein movie version of The Princess Bride?  Inconceivable!

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And you know what else is “Inconceivable!”? 

After ten years of writing and revising, I’m finally done with The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy, and it’s available for pre-order (release date February 10) at The Sunset Rises-Amazon Page ! Plus, a sample is here at The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy (sample chapter) .