Stretch Break 4: Objective Writing vs. Sentiment

The bedrock of good writing is to keep the author out of the way of story. Detectives only write about the facts of the case. Be objective and avoid the emotional, inner life of your character.

Example:
Sentiment: My wife left me for another man. It hurt.
Vs.
Objective: My wife left me for another man. I went to a bar and got drunk that night. In the morning I woke up in the arms of a another woman.

If you find yourself embellishing your piece or using an abundance of flowery, over-indulgent language, a good rule of thumb is to get rid of every other sentence. You'll find that this is a good means of adding more muscle to your story.

Nowadays, we find it unnecessary to use narration to talk about the actions. An example is the narrator at the beginning of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." Most directors will cut that out nowadays.
One that uses it successfully, however, is "Our Town," which uses theatrical language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Town

We watch plays to see how characters interact with each other, not to be told what happens. Again the basics of writing: show don't tell.

This is much like Plot Vs. Story, where the plot is more rich than the story.
Story: The King died, then the Queen died.
Plot: The King died, then the Queen died of a broken heart.
As you can see, story describes the "what," whereas plot describes the "how" of the story.