Here is one of my all-time favorite quotes about writing, from Virginia Woolf: “Each sentence must have, at its heart, a little spark of fire, and this, whatever the risk, the novelist must pluck with his own hands from the blaze.”  I keep this taped to my computer to remind me of the writer’s primary—and greatest—challenge: to engage the reader. A little spark of fire in every sentence will do just that. This quote came to mind while reading Leif Enger ’s newest novel, So Brave, Young, and Handsome. The novel, set on the road from Minnesota to California in 1915, delineates novelist Monte Becket’s journey to regain purpose after his astounding debut sucks the life from him. He does so by latching onto Glendon Hale, a character with a shady past who is seeking out the wife he abandoned in order to make amends. The tale is like the river the two men initially navigate: while not always a whitewater thrill-fest, it nonetheless provides enough current to pull the average reader ...

I've been known to irreverently refer to the early work of untrained writers as “an amazing number of black marks on a white page.” I'm not without compassion; we all must start somewhere, and I applaud anyone who sits still long enough to try to bring a literary vision to fruition. As a developmental editor, I enjoy helping shape such work. But it's immediately apparent, in many manuscripts I see, that the writer has concentrated too hard on the black marks without giving the white page its due. In overwriting, the author has created a wall of words and feelings and facts and actions and descriptions and stage directions that virtually shut out the reader. That conscientious effort to tell every aspect of a story ends up being a misstep. The reader wants to bring her life experience and intellect and observation skills to what she reads. Add things up. Make educated guesses. Feel smart. Fill in the blanks. To that end, you need some blanks. What you don’t say can be of...