Imagine you are reading a novel. The novel is pretty good, you’re into it, and before you know it you’re at page 152.

Only to discover that there are 35 pages missing.

But the novel is good enough that you decide to press on and see if you are confused or lost by skipping ahead to page 187.

By page 190 you are caught up on everything you might have missed.

Does the fact that 35 pages are missing in the middle of a good book mean that even good books are stuffed with too much filler? And is this why I can’t even finish writing a short story? I hate filler. I hate reading filler. Putting sentences into a piece just to fill it out pisses me off.

And I like reading, so it’s not a problem of intellectual laziness. It does seem that a lot of writers (most even) spend excessive amounts of time crafting perfect, intricate, and eye-glossingly long descriptions of things just to fill in a page, when one well crafted sentence would work just as well to give the reader the image they are seeking.