Dialogue Writing: Pare Down the Scaffolding

In my editorial practice, I see a lot of dialogue writing. I’ve found that there are two types of writers when it comes to writing dialogue in fiction. One type takes a minimal approach to the stuff around the dialogue. One uses dialogue tags, adverbs, and narrative to construct scaffolding (check out the types of dialogue tags here). If you’ve ever worked with me no a manuscript, you know that I don’t take kindly to a lot of scaffolding. I feel that it distracts from the dialogue, which is the rightful star of scene. It’s usually totally unnecessary. When I see a lot of scaffolding, I often remind writers to trust themselves and their readers. Trust themselves to come across as intended, and trust their readers to pick up on what’s being conveyed.

Not Enough Information in Dialogue Writing

Take a look at the following examples. The first is dialogue writing with no scaffolding. I’ve only used dialogue tags twice, one for each character at the beginning:

“Hey,” Sara said.
“What’s up?” Zach asked.
“Oh, you know.”
“The usual?”
“The usual.”

I would say that there’s not enough here. We don’t know enough about the characters, what they’re feeling, or why they’re talking in the moment. So I would say that something needs to be added. But how much something? Let’s say that you want to really convey what’s going on with Zach and Sara. How might you achieve that? Well, let’s add some emotions, speech tags, fancy “said” synonyms, and choreography.

Too Much Information in Dialogue Writing

“Hey,” Sara snarled.
“What’s up?” Zach said, icily.
She waved her hand in the air, as if dismissing him. “Oh, you know.”
“The usual?” He made sure to roll his eyes.
Quite annoyed, she dropped her voice to a near-whisper. “The usual.”

Well, I would say it’s quite clear now how Zach and Sara are feeling. The dialogue is exactly the same, but now I’ve festooned the scene with all sorts of little extras that clearly tell the reader that Zach and Sara are having some kind of fight. Maybe they’re avoiding one another. Maybe Zach has come into Sara’s coffee shop and she has to serve him but she doesn’t want to.

There’s tension in the scene, I’ll admit. But maybe it’s also a bit of overkill? After all, after reading this, my head is almost ringing from being hit too many times. The writer here (me) is explaining the emotions way too much. “Snarled” conveys anger. Waving a hand in the air is a cliché gesture for dismissing. If that wasn’t enough, the dismissal is also explained (“as if dismissing him”). Eye rolls are another cliché gesture. Then the emotion of annoyance is named, and a tone of voice is introduced that further underscores the tension between the two. We usually only whisper things if we’re trying to be quiet or if we’ve tightened our throats in anger. (More advice on how to write dialogue in a story.)

Trust Your Reader

The second scene would have too much “scaffolding,” as I call it. Whereas the first scene has not enough. If Zach and Sara were really fighting with one another, there would be no way to tell without some help. You might think that I’m playing the scaffolding up to provide an example, and while that was my objective, I am not lying when I say that I’ve seen scaffolding that thick in manuscripts. And sometimes even thicker scaffolding.

Oftentimes, writers don’t trust themselves to be clear about what they’re saying when writing dialogue. And they (subconsciously) don’t trust readers to “get it.” So they go overboard. You will know if you put up a lot of scaffolding because you’ll see that almost none of your dialogue exists “naked” on the page (without any speech tags or narration).

Pare Down the Scaffolding

So what’s the solution? Pare way down. And let the dialogue itself do the emotional talking for you, instead of putting everything in the scaffolding. I’ve changed the dialogue itself to have more emotional energy. You can also use interiority to convey feelings, like I do with a peek into Zach’s head here. This would be my ideal third example, a sort of middle ground:

Sara looked up from the register. “Oh. Hey.”
“Oh.” Zach fumbled with his wallet. He should’ve known her schedule better. Maybe she swapped shifts? This was the last thing he needed. “Um, what’s up?”
“What’s up? What’s up. Really? You know.”
“The usual?”
“Yeah, let’s go with that. The usual.”

There’s a sense of tension here between Zach and Sara, but it’s not hammered home. There’s some breathing room for the reader to wonder what they might be thinking or going through, and it opens the door for more of an interaction than “I HATE YOU”/”WELL I HATE YOU MORE!!!” That’s sort of the tone of the middle example, and you can definitely find more nuance.

Are you struggling with the rules for dialogue writing? When you invest in my manuscript editing services, I’ll help you identify instances of telling in dialogue, as well which speech tags you can trim altogether.

Rules For Writing Dialogue: Trim the Hand-Holding

Anyone who has worked with me knows that I take a pretty hard line when it comes to rules for writing dialogue. I have a low tolerance for telling in dialogue tags, like:

“I’m so excited!” she said exuberantly.
“That’s wonderful.” Coldness radiated from his voice.

writing dialogue in fiction, rules for writing dialogue — Rules for writing dialogue: Let your characters be the stars of your dialogue, not your overexplaining.

Nothing bums me out more than reading scenework where the writer has decided to take all the fun out of it on the reader’s behalf. Sometimes I call it “hand-holding,” sometimes I call it “overexplaining,” sometimes I just cross it out. Let’s take a deeper look at the rules for writing dialogue and what you need to watch out for.

Overexplaining Takes the Shine Out of Your Dialogue

The reason behind my aversion is that writers who do this are taking something essential away from the reader. The star of dialogue is the dialogue itself (tips on how to write dialogue). Holding the reader’s hand through each snippet of dialogue says to me that you don’t quite trust yourself to communicate the scene in a way that the reader gets it.

Scene is one of the magic places in a manuscript where characters can be on display, speaking to one another, acting toward one another, and otherwise demonstrating themselves and their relationships. Rules for writing dialogue that works is the ultimate voyeur’s paradise (calling the reader a voyeur here). Whenever you tell, instead of show, you take away the reader’s power to interpret and appreciate character. (Follow the link for more info on show, don’t tell if you need to brush up on this elusive concept.)

Rules For Writing Dialogue: Match Dialogue With Action

The first example of writing dialogue in fiction, above, is there because it’s redundant. You would not believe how many writers do this. If a character says “I’m so excited!” then it can stand alone, with no further explanation. I’d be a wealthy woman if I had $5 for every time I saw:

“I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“Yes,” he agreed.

The second example is more subtle. Your character is saying one thing, but there’s an undercurrent of story tension and the suggestion that they mean something else. Delicious! Instead of describing tone of voice (sneaky telling), maybe match up the dialogue with action to color it:

“That’s wonderful.” He crossed his arms.

Writing Dialogue in Fiction: Match Dialogue With Character Reaction

Or, maybe even better yet, leave it up to reader or POV character interpretation:

“That’s wonderful.”
“Oh yeah? You think so?” The last time he’d used that descriptor, he was watching a snake choking the life out of a mongoose.

Let the character react, which will help guide reader feelings.

Dialogue Tags Communicate Information

The two biggest things they should clarify are:

Who is speaking?
Is there anything going on in narration or action that’s not implied in the dialogue?

But too many tags tell about emotions, tone of voice, and tension when those are better uncovered by the reader for lasting character and relationship understanding. Next time you’re working on a scene and you want to try something hard, take out ALL of your dialogue tags and see how it reads. If it’s totally confusing, layer back 25% of what you had before and see if you can make it work. (Check out types of dialogue tags here.)

If you’re one of those writers addicted to dialogue tags, especially in scenes with only two characters, where you theoretically don’t even need them, I bet this will be a revelatory reminder that you’re explaining too much.

Are you struggling with the rules for writing dialogue? When you invest in my manuscript editing services, I’ll help you identify instances of telling in dialogue, as well which tags you can trim altogether.

Proper Formatting for Interruption in Dialogue

This week we’re talking about proper formatting for interruption in dialogue and trailing off in dialogue. Now, some people have called me very strict when it comes to dialogue formatting, and I’d agree. I have very low tolerance for excessive dialogue tags, too much gesture/action clogging up scene, improper formatting, and fancy “said” synonyms or adverbs (learn types of dialogue tags here). What I’m about to discuss here is another one of my pet peeves. The good news is, it has a very intuitive fix, which you can begin to implement as soon as you’re aware of the issue of interrupted dialogue.

interrupted dialogue, interruption in dialogue — Dammit, Barbara, you just never let me finish any–

Interruption in Dialogue And Trailing Off Done the Wrong Way

I began to say, “You just never let me finish any…” when Mom interrupted me.
“That’s because there’s nothing you can say,” she moaned. “What you’ve done is so…so…” She trailed off.

Here we find both an interruption in dialogue and trailing off (with a bonus fancy “said” synonym). We also find, and I hope this popped out at you, a lot of excess description of pretty obvious stuff. This dialogue is currently bogged down in logistic. Instead, it should really move quickly and fly off the page.

The good news is, you can accomplish that with punctuation that exists for just this purpose.

To Indicate Interruption in Dialogue, Use An Em-Dash

To create interrupted dialogue that everyone will recognize as such, use an em-dash where you want to end the dialogue. You create an em-dash by typing two hyphens, and most word processing programs will tie them automatically into the longer dash. (Check out more punctuation rules for dialogue.)

To Indicate Trailing Off in Dialogue, Use An Ellipse

To indicate a person trialing off from their train of thought, whether in speech or narration, use an ellipse. (Make sure to check out my related post on interruptions and trailing off when you’re writing thoughts.) You create one by typing three periods in a row with no space before and sometimes a space after. If there’s a pause within a sentence…like this, you don’t need a space after. If there’s a pause between sentences, use a space… And that’s really all there is.

Interruption in Dialogue And Trailing Off Done the Right Way

“You just never let me finish any–”
“That’s because there’s nothing to say. What you’ve done is so…so…”

You’ve cut the whole “I began to say” business, and the “Mom interrupted me” because it’s all right there in the punctuation. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am!

Hire my manuscript critique services and I’ll point out instances where you can improve your interrupted dialogue.

Dialogue Tips and Dialogue Formatting

Two quick-and-dirty nuts-and-bolts dialogue tips for dialogue formatting. But dialogue in fiction has many rules to follow. Writers are always curious about formatting dialogue, or how to write it better. Why? Literary agents and publishers are always looking for examples of sharp, smart dialogue that’s a distillation of real life, or real life enhanced (Read more about writing realistic dialogue here.) This is a very nuanced topic, above and beyond the scope of one post, but here are two dialogue tips that you want to make sure you follow.

dialogue tips, dialogue formatting — “Oh, hello, Susan. Would you like to hear my best ‘Your Mom’ joke? Or is it ‘your mom’?”

Two Simple Dialogue Tips

First, if you are addressing a character by name, the standard formatting includes a comma before and the capitalization of the name. An example:

“Would you like this disgusting tennis ball, Gertie?” (My dog’s favorite question.)

Second, if the character happens to be the parent in your story, you need to make an important distinction. Are you addressing them as Mom or Dad (as if it is their name), or are you referring to them as a noun? I see this all the time in manuscripts. Here’s an example that makes the distinction clear:

“Do you have a mom, too, Mom?”

Here, you can talk about “a mom” or “her dad” or “his mommy” all you want, but it is lowercase. The second you use it to address a character, just as you would a name, it becomes capitalized. A quick proofread will tell you if you’re on the right track. If not, commit this simple dialogue formatting rule of thumb to memory. (Ready for more dialogue tips? Maybe about dialogue tags? Now we’re getting into the real meat of this very important topic.)

Dialogue writing can be tricky for even the most seasoned writer. Not only do I proofread every manuscript for errors like these as your book editor, but I’ll give you bigger picture creative feedback on your work.

How to Write a Scene: Picking The Right Time

I’ve written a lot about how to write dialogue, and now I want to introduce the idea of how to write a scene — specifically, keeping a scene going and picking the right time to interrupt the narrative flow. What’s the best time to insert information, description, dialogue tags, or action? (Read about types of dialogue tags here.)

how to write a scene, narrative flow — How to write a scene: when do you insert description, dialogue, or action?

How to Write a Scene: Pick the Best Moment to Insert Info

If your answer is, “Uhhhh, whenever I think of it?” then congratulations, you’re like most writers. But just because you think of inserting something into a scene at a certain moment doesn’t mean that’s the best moment.

We’ve all had the experience, I think, of reading a manuscript (our own or a critique partner’s) and getting involved in a scene. Great! We’ve all also gone with the writer on a tangent when they interrupt the scene to insert some kind of block of text, right? Then the scene restarts with a rejoinder or response–“I completely agree with you,” she said–and…wait a minute! What were they talking about? You scroll up madly to reconnect the conversational thread.

Dialogue is Key When Writing Scene

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: how to write a scene is about the dialogue. It’s not about the dialogue tags. It’s not about the actions or gestures that accompany the speech. It’s not about the description of the cafeteria around the characters who are speaking, unless it just so happens to break out in a food fight and interrupt them. It’s about what’s being said. Or at least it should be.

Whenever you interrupt the narrative flow, you best have a good reason (check out how to write an interruption). This is not the time for big blocks of text that derail the reader’s attention and train of thought. This is not the time to establish part of the setting (which you should’ve done as we were entering the location) or reinforce a character’s personal appearance (which you should’ve done when we were meeting them the first or second time). When we hunker down for a scene, think of it as an express train that makes very selective stops. It should stop for things that are important to the plot, first and foremost. If that food fight is going to happen in the middle of the scene, then, yeah, by all means stop the dialogue. If the mean girl comes to harass everyone, then include it.

Go With the (Narrative) Flow

But there’s a time and place for all sorts of other distracting information, and in the middle of a scene usually isn’t it. By being selective and figuring out how to write a scene, you are gaining control over your prose. The more writers practice, the more organized they become. They realize that there’s a natural ebb and flow to good writing and that it’s perfectly fine, desirable even, to be strategic in handling where and how you introduce different character and plot elements. For now, you should be vigilant about not disrupting a piece of dialogue’s train of thought. That’s an easy fix and it helps instill good writing habits.

Hire me for fiction editing. I will comment on all facets of your manuscript, including the narrative flow of your individual scenes.

Dialogue Spacing

I’ve been doing critiques recently and wanted to give writers some pointers about dialogue spacing.

Dialogue Spacing

The most important note that I’ve been giving is that you need to put every piece of dialogue and/or action that belong to the same character in the same paragraph. If a character is speaking only, that’s one paragraph. If the character is acting and not speaking, that’s one paragraph. If a character is both speaking and talking in one moment, that’s one paragraph.

You break for narration, if there is a narrator, and description, or to switch characters.

Dialogue spacing seems like a no-brainer to some of you, but I just gave this note about five times in a row and it seems like there are people out there for whom this isn’t second nature. (Find even more dialogue tips! Learn punctuation rules for dialogue.)

Dialogue Format: Tags

Also, to go along with this note: You don’t need a tag for every piece of dialogue if there are only two people in a scene. If you follow the above tip, your readers will be able to follow who’s talking (more on writing realistic dialogue here). You should only go heavy on the dialogue tags if there are three or more people in a scene, because things could get hairy there.

Follow the link to learn more about dialogue tags. Finally, another post about how to write dialogue. You can never be too careful or judicious with your dialogue tags or dialogue spacing. This is one thing that could either support your scenes beautifully or be completely distracting.

Hire me for fiction editing. I will comment on all facets of your manuscript, including dialogue spacing.

Passive Action in Your Story Pacing and How to Avoid It

Don’t get me wrong, when my friends and I do it, I find sitting around and talking fascinating. But I don’t like too much of it in my story pacing. When characters chit-chat, that’s passive action. You may have heard several writing teachers saying that kitchens, dining rooms, living rooms, airplanes, and cars are especially dangerous settings for story pacing. Why? Because they limit action to one of very few things. Mainly, people in these settings tend to … sit around and talk.

passive action, story pacing — Hanging out and talking is great for your social life. Not so much for your story pacing!

Why Sitting Around and Talking Hurts Your Story Pacing

Talking in fiction SHOULD accomplish many things. Good dialogue reveals character objective and motivation, characterizes our fictional people and deepens our understanding of them. Often, it pits them against one another, creating conflict. In the hands of lesser scribes, though, lots of dialogue tends to be one giant info-dump (which leads to more passive action, per the balance of action and information). The writer has realized that their reader doesn’t have all the information necessary to continue the story, so they play catch-up and rationalize to themselves that, just because there are quotation marks around it, it’s not an info-dump or blatant backstory (check out tips on writing backstory here).

“Well, as you know, son, your mother was very ill last year and, at that time, she left you a box of belongings. I know you have been longing to get in there, but…”

Blah blah blah. And I’m putting the manuscript down.

Writing great dialogue is a whole other blog post (or ten; check out this one on how to write dialogue in a story). But for this brief reminder, take the following to heart: Dialogue is not a dumping ground for backstory. That’s the height of passive action. Scenes where people are sitting around and talking are a minefield for the story pacing and action stopping cold. If you have a lot of these scenes, break them up with action in between. If you have an entire plot that is based on an environment conducive to sitting around and talking (the course of the story takes place on an overnight flight to London), I don’t envy you. Find a way to break up the constant conversation with action (think Snakes on a Plane).

Consider this when discussing story pacing: there’s talk, and then there’s action. That’s an old and familiar adage. We tend to want to see action, not just hear talk about it or promises or apologies. Same for your fiction. Find a way to inject action and things actually happening in any plot, but especially one that might be set primarily in a static environment.

Does your story pacing need some work? Hire me as your freelance editor and receive customized feedback on your plot and scene work.

“Show Don’t Tell” Examples

“Show Don’t Tell” is the old adage you hear in every writing class, workshop, critique group and probably on some things you’ve had edited, rejected or submitted in your lifetime.

“Show don’t tell,” says the editor or agent or well-meaning crit partner. “You know, this really is an issue of showing versus telling,” says the writing teacher. Well, we all know that showing is good and telling is bad. But do we really know what that means?

“Show Don’t Tell” Examples of Telling

The common rhetoric is too general. Here’s what “show don’t tell” means and, more importantly, why it’s important.

Let me give you some show don’t tell examples. I’m not saying this is the end-all and be-all, or even that well-written, but I’m hoping you’ll see the difference. Here’s telling:

Katie was so hungry she could eat a horse. She bellied up to the diner counter, her stomach rumbling. If she didn’t eat now, she’d die. It felt like an empty pit had opened up inside her. “A burger, please!” she shouted.

Karl, working behind the counter, looked at the newcomer with disdain. He really hated people who came up and bossed him around, even if they were supposed to always be right. He procrastinated as much as possible with restocking the silverware caddy. Then he wasted some more time wiping down the counter. Finally, he came over to the girl who he didn’t like very much. “Would you like fries with that?” he asked, ironically, a fake smile on his face.

“Show Don’t Tell” Examples of Showing

Now let’s try showing on for size:

Katie ran up to the counter and gripped the edge hard. It felt like a pit had opened up inside her. “A burger, please!” she shouted.

Karl barely registered her from behind the counter. Screw “the customer is always right,” he thought, glancing at Benny, the fat manager. He opened the dishwasher and pulled steaming hot forks out one by one. Then he noticed a coffee stain on the counter that had to be rubbed twice, three times, four. The new girl wove in her seat like she was about to pass out. Victory. Finally, he met her eyes. “Would you like fries with that?”

Digging Deeper Into Showing and Telling

What do you notice about these show don’t tell examples? In the first one, the characters’ emotions are very obvious. Why? The narrator tells you all about them. We know Katie is hungry and we know Karl really isn’t digging the bossy way she ordered a burger. That’s fine. It works. It gets the information across, right? (In a very redundant way, mind you!)

What about in the second example–did we still get that same information? Now what about it is different, then? There are a few things. First, we were able to get “hungry” without anybody saying the word. The rush on Katie’s part to get to the counter combined with a little bit of interiority about what she’s feeling and then matched to her shouting out an order. We’re pretty sure she’s hungry or, at the very least, that something urgent is going on.

Using Interiority: Thoughts, Feelings, Reactions

We get more into Karl’s head here. We get his tension with the manager and his attitude about a common customer service adage right away. He won’t even look at the customer. Instead, he busies himself with painstakingly removing forks “one by one” or the tally of how many times he wipes the counter. These drag out the scene without once using the word “procrastination.”

We also get more of Katie’s hunger from his perspective, and how it makes Karl feel. That way, his rehashed “Would you like fries with that?” still comes across ironically, though, this time, it’s because we know what’s been going on in his head much more intimately. This is called interiority.

How Readers Receive and Know Information

This brings me to why “show don’t tell” is so crucial, why so many writing teachers and agents and editors and critique partners harp on it: there are many kinds of knowing. One kind of knowing, you get by reading facts in the newspaper. You are a passive recipient of information.

Another kind of knowing, the kind you practice every day in your life, is the detective work kind. You have to do some reasoning, some sleuthing, you have to actively pay attention to what’s going on around you — what the world is showing you — in order to figure people out, judge a situation, make your own assumptions and decisions about things.

This is the exact kind of “knowing” that you’re interested in giving your reader. By showing them a scene, showing them what’s going on in a person’s head, giving them information but embedding it below the surface, you’re inviting your reader to put their thinking cap on, to dive into your story and go deeper. The reader had to work in the second of the two show don’t tell examples to figure out what’s going on with both Katie and Karl.

Guess what? That made them feel like they knew the characters better, it made them more engaged in the story and it gave them a sense of ownership of these people and their scene. Since the reader did some work to figure out what was going on, they now feel included, emotionally invested. Cool, right? And every author should pick creating that experience for their reader over just telling them stuff with every sentence they write.

An Exception to the Rule

Showing v. telling with a person’s interiority in third or first person narration is one small exception to the rule. (Check out my post on interiority in writing for more on this concept.) I know some of you will ask why I still chose to tell the reader “It felt like a pit had opened up inside her” in the second of the two show don’t tell examples, too. There are some times when you can show too much. If you’re always saying “she punched the wall” or “she spat on the ground,” for example, instead of occasionally just saying what the character feels inside, it can get overwhelming. You don’t have to say “angry” outright, but you can simply tell the reader what’s going on with narration instead of action or gesture. Sometimes that’s easier and more direct.

It all depends on where you want the focus of each moment to go. And it is a balance. Play around with it. Now that you know why “show don’t tell” is so crucial in your writing, you should really, at least in the beginning, err very much on the side of showing.

Struggling with your balance of showing, telling, and interiority? Get my book, Writing Interiority: Crafting Irresistible Characters, and transform your approach to character creation and storytelling.

How to Write Dialogue: Tips From the Masters

Today I want to discuss how to write dialogue, but I feel like you’re all pretty thoroughly sick of me by the midpoint of Revision-o-Rama, and rightfully so. I’ve been blabbing my mouth off for quite some time. So instead of bloviating about writing dialogue rules, I’ll let writers who actually write excellent dialogue do it for me! (I’ll also compile a link or two from what I’ve previously written on the subject… anything new I try to write will start to feel redundant and, as we all know, redundancy is one big thing to get rid of during revision!)

how to write dialogue, writing dialogue rules — Check out these resources for tips on how to write dialogue that’s crisp and authentic.

Excellent Thoughts on How to Write Dialogue

First, click here for an excellent post about revising dialogue from amazing YA writer Laurie Halse Anderson’s blog.
Next, you can find another post about dialogue by clicking here, this time from YA writer Barry Lyga, who Laurie recently feuded with on Twitter… about dialogue!
In fact, Barry has so much to say about dialogue that he has a whole enormous series on it! You can find Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 by clicking on the corresponding links. (I linked to Part 5 in the bullet point above.) Check them out, they are well worth a careful study.
Finally, go ahead and wander on back to Kidlit.com for an old post I did about dialogue tags.

A lot of tips on writing dialogue can still apply as tips on revising dialogue. If anyone has great posts from other blogs that I’m missing (and there are a lot, I’d wager), leave them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list so that this can become a resource for the future.

How To Tell Your Story: When To Cut, When To Keep

When you’re rewriting a book, here are some very simple benchmarks for when to cut something out of your manuscript. If you are agonizing over how to tell your story and are trying to decide whether to keep a paragraph, scene, phrase, character, line of dialogue, etc., run it through this checklist.

(Hint: if people are telling you that your pacing is slowing down or if a scene is running long and boring to re-read during revisions… Pay attention!)

How To Tell Your Story: You Can Cut Something If…

It does not advance our understanding of the character. Does this piece of writing show us something new about or a deeper layer of your character? Everything you write serves a purpose (and no, that purpose is not to boost your word count). If nothing new is revealed as a result of this being in the manuscript, cut it. If no new nuance emerges, give it the axe.
It is just so darn clever. Find the part you love so much because it is witty. Cut it. That’s you showing off as a writer and I’m willing to bet that it does not advance our understanding of the character (see above) or advance the plot and tension (see below).
It does not advance plot or raise tension. Every piece of fiction needs plot and tension to keep the reader going. Some things have very little happen in them but they’re readable. That’s okay, I guess. In the same way that elevator muzak technically counts as a composition. “Readability” is not what we’re striving for, though. So when you’re rewriting a book, make sure you are turning out plot points and upping the tension with every scene you write.
It does not reveal anything new. In terms of plot, or backstory, or foreshadowing or our immersion in the world of the book. If something doesn’t give us more meat to chew on, it’s just fat and gristle.

How to Tell Your Story: Trim the Fat

This is a very reductive view of writing revision. But honestly? I’ve been reading some manuscripts this week where I’ve wondered long and hard: Why is this in here? Whether it’s been a particular bon mot that the writer couldn’t cut (KILL YOUR BABIES!) or a scene where the same wrinkle in a friendship dynamic is replayed over and over (“I just need to know I can trust you, man!”/”You can trust me, broseph!” for like five scenes straight…), I have developed a wicked itchy delete button finger.

And what happens when you rewrite a book and all of the unnecessary fat is gone?

What’s that?

You’ve freed up some room in your word count and it gives you anxiety?

Go forth and fill it with important, varied, nuanced and truthful stuff! This is how to tell your story (more about how to rewrite a novel here). Because if what you’re writing isn’t any of that–if it is just taking up space in your manuscript–then those are dead words anyway. It’s better if you cut them when you see them, as they’re placeholders for something more awesome.

Trust me. Now go: chop, chop, chop on your way to figuring out how to tell your story.

Rewriting a book? Hire me as your freelance book editor and I’ll help you trim the fat and focus on the elements that drive your plot forward.