Why LESS is more in your novel
I think most us learn this the hard way: that less is more. It is particularly true in your novel.
A lot of times when I am reading nowadays I am "researching" how the author weaved their story. Recently I've noticed that compared to some of the dialogue I have in my MS, the book I am reading has dialogue that is very pared down, gets to the point, and keeps me wanting more. The characters don't go on forever and ever explaining themselves.
Most importantly: the author doesn't explain everything.
There are two spots in my MS that have been driving me nuts lately and I figured out why: I had too much written, I was trying too hard, I wasn't letting my characters do their own thing.
And naturally, when something in our writing doesn't work or it's confusing...we write even more into the scene, dialogue, or description.
My response now to that is: DON'T DO IT. RESIST.
Or, if you do, make sure you throw up everything onto the page and then pare it down.
So these two spots I've been working on?
I realized that my problem wasn't that I needed to write more to explain, I needed to take out. I was overwriting. What my characters said didn't sound natural. It was too much. Too dramatic. Not realistic. Plus, when you write everything in to the scene, that leaves nothing for your readers to wonder about. It leaves no room for creativity or that thirst to know what is actually going on.
I took a ton of stuff out, but left the meat and potatoes of the dialogue. And you know what? It was like magic. My scene WORKED. Better than I thought it could.
So. If you have a tricky spot and you know it's going to be messy, instead of letting your fingers fly across the keyboard without looking back, try taking stuff out instead. You might surprise yourself :)
A lot of times when I am reading nowadays I am "researching" how the author weaved their story. Recently I've noticed that compared to some of the dialogue I have in my MS, the book I am reading has dialogue that is very pared down, gets to the point, and keeps me wanting more. The characters don't go on forever and ever explaining themselves.
Most importantly: the author doesn't explain everything.
There are two spots in my MS that have been driving me nuts lately and I figured out why: I had too much written, I was trying too hard, I wasn't letting my characters do their own thing.
And naturally, when something in our writing doesn't work or it's confusing...we write even more into the scene, dialogue, or description.
My response now to that is: DON'T DO IT. RESIST.
Or, if you do, make sure you throw up everything onto the page and then pare it down.
So these two spots I've been working on?
I realized that my problem wasn't that I needed to write more to explain, I needed to take out. I was overwriting. What my characters said didn't sound natural. It was too much. Too dramatic. Not realistic. Plus, when you write everything in to the scene, that leaves nothing for your readers to wonder about. It leaves no room for creativity or that thirst to know what is actually going on.
I took a ton of stuff out, but left the meat and potatoes of the dialogue. And you know what? It was like magic. My scene WORKED. Better than I thought it could.
So. If you have a tricky spot and you know it's going to be messy, instead of letting your fingers fly across the keyboard without looking back, try taking stuff out instead. You might surprise yourself :)
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