Slowly but steadily, progress continues.

When I went in to the CSSF Workshop, I had all sorts of problems with my writing. My prose was passive, I told instead of showing. The ideas were solid, but the execution was lacking.

I focused on the grammatical in the weeks and months before and after the workshop. I’m reasonably certain that I’ve got a solid grasp on that aspect of the craft now. Feedback from my writers group seems to back that up.

The focus now shifts to characterization. What I’m finding is that I’m almost too tight, I think, on the details I put into the story for fear of infodumping. At some point, some infodumping is necessary, I think. The trick is limiting it to only as much as necessary. I’ve spent time revising and rewriting to reduce infodump and passive prose but at some stage I cut out too much and I need to work out how, where, and when to add detail that is vital to the motivations of the characters and tone of the story.