U is for Under

Near the end of the challenge and we're getting into some of the fun letters. I'm struggling through but will make it to the very end and have a plan to comment on random blogs throughout May too. Check out some of the other blogs here.

Today we are going to look at a few Under options in relation to editing.

under-whelm - This is something we don't want our story to do most of the time. You do not want to under-whelm the reader with the conflict and characters. You don't want to over do things to the point that it's hard for the worry to heighten or to keep the interest that active for too long, but definitely don't want the story to be under in the whelm category.

under-write - This is a depends on style and genre aspect. And will vary on draft too, so it can be okay. My first draft of the one I'm editing was only 23,000 words. Talk about under-writing. I had to more than double the word count during the following drafts in order to get it up to the sufficient 70k that it is now. I still under-write certain aspects, like description and am working on those aspects in my editing. It's not uncommon for a bit of an "edit" to increase a chapter word count, instead of decrease,  for me.

under-emote - I struggle with this because the main thing the beta readers noticed is they wanted more emotion. It's challenging to do it without telling and I'm still working on how the emotion comes across even in this final edit. Want the emotions to seem realistic but not melodramatic either.


What type of Under- do you work on in your edits?