One of the biggest tools I took away from listening to George Saunder's talks is that many unimportant details can be left out of a short story. Actually George says that he leaves details out because it is respectful to the reader and creates more intimacy with the reader. Saunder's talks about how he always write way more than he needs, and ends up cutting back and revising his work many times. Saunder's said that one of his short stories was just finished even though he started it in 1998. I don't know if I could ever have that much patience when it came to revising.
In DFW's story you could also see that he had done a lot of revising and shortening to his work. He only told us what we needed to know and left out a lot more information. For me, I could really relate to DFW's story because I am from New York and a lot of my family grew up and still lives in New York City. The fact that DFW could bring together so many elements of that day into a short story tells a lot about the amount of work he put into revising and editing his piece.
On project 2, I really want to try and make my short story as detailed, yet brief as possible. I have always been someone who writes a lot more than what is needed, so in project 2 I want to talk less and say more.
-Travis Kearns
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