Well hilariously, after my last post about letting my inner-self take the editing reigns, things (as Jon Ronson might say) fell apart.
If you follow me on Twitter/X you might have seen:
Where editing went something like this:
Me: OK, goodies are doing this, baddies are doing that … hold the phone, baddies are doing what? That doesn’t make sense.
Me: Ahem, baddies, why are you doing that?
Also me: Because the rest of the book depends on it.
And again, me: Fuuuuuuuuuuu….
Hence the unravelling.
That’s a bit overdramatic. The whole plot didn’t depend on what the villains were up to - that’s not how it works (or at least it shouldn’t). The plot depends on what the protagonists are up to, but the antagonists’ actions must be plausible and dear reader, they were not!
Back to the notebook I went, and compiled a timeline of the whole shebang in question, hitting myself over the head with regular reminders to stop writing mysteries because they are hard! In this case, it’s hard because of what is happening off-page. Sans spoilers, my baddies are up to no good behind the scenes - all will be revealed, of course, but what happens, when, and why is critical to it all making sense, being believable, and (this got me thinking) leaving the reader with the right sort of work to do.
That was a circuitous route to the point of this piece but here we are: when you’re writing, keep in mind that there is work your reader wants to do and work they really don’t.
This crops up a lot when I’m editing and I’m sure it might sometimes seem as though I’m contradicting myself in my feedback. I might say, ‘can you clarify this so the reader isn’t distracted, wondering about X’, where X is perhaps why a character has said or done something, or why the colour or height or sound or sudden appearance of a thing is important. Because you don’t want your reader drifting out of the narrative you’ve worked so hard to immerse them in. You’ve hooked your reader, they are invested, so don’t let them go wondering about trivialities.
And then in the next comment box, I might advise an author to leave something to the reader’s imagination or to not give too much away, let the reader think about this point, let them wonder. Am I being frustratingly contrary, or is there a difference between work your reader is excited to do and work that is annoyingly diverting?
Of course there is.
This is one area where I think it’s really important to have someone else read your work, be it an editor, agent, critique partner, beta reader, family member. You, the writer, know what is going on in the background, what is yet to come, and what has happened off-page. But when someone else reads your work those annoying questions pop right up:
‘Couldn’t they just do X?’ (You think you’re being mysterious - actually it’s coming across on the page as vague)
‘Why would they say/do that?’ (You think you’re dropping in a clue or foreshadowing, but it’s out of character or jars with the scene)
‘That doesn’t fit with what we know/reality. I’d better try and remember that for the entire rest of the book or at least until it makes sense.’ (And while your reader is holding that thought, they can’t possibly be fully behind the eyes of your protagonist)
On the other hand:
‘What the hell is going on? I don’t know but I love it and I can’t wait to find out … and I’m confident that this author has the skill to show me what it means when it’s important.’
This is the work we all want to do as readers. We come across that clue, hint, sense of change, or unsettling oddness but it flows naturally within the narrative and we trust that all will be revealed without worrying about it.
Your reader will be able to tell you whether you’ve hit this sweet spot, or not.
This feeling that you need to ‘stay on target’ and spare your reader any diversion is especially important in the opening pages, and another easy pitfall to find yourself in is that you’ve opened the door to intrusive thoughts on the very first page.
Many of the opening pages I see go like this:
Hooky opening line - check
intro to character, with MC in the middle of doing something representing ordinary life - check
An indication that something might change, a mysterious occurrence, a strange feeling - check
The MC drifts off into internal narrative about their backstory; there’s a mini flashback to tell us something that happened before the first line; a best friend or nemesis appears in the middle of the media res opening - Ah
points 1 to 3 are great - they allow the reader to sink into the main character and the story like stepping into a warm bath. Point 4 is like being slapped around the face with a cold flannel.
I sometimes wonder if Save the Cat might be partly responsible for this (apologies Snyder fans) as it asks for the theme to be stated directly after the opening image, and perhaps writers take this literally, sequing off into a paragraph that places the book in its genre: Here’s a funny line so you know this is a comedy! Here’s a potted history of the world - it’s dystopian. Here’s my main character doing something unforgivable to their best friend last week; can you see it’s a story about friendship and forgiveness? But that’s just a theory. It might simply be a desire by the author to give the reader as much information as possible, and that’s understandable and natural. But it’s usually too much too soon.
Stay in the moment and trust your reader. They want to do the work.
Quick reminder that if you need eyes on a manuscript I’m ready to read! I have some availability in May for structural or line editing and I offer free first-page reviews if you’d like to know if you’ve gone off-target there!
And, if you’re self-editing, or about to edit, I’ll be in Bristol this June at the Writers’ Day with Storytale Festival’s Storytale Futures. Early bird tickets are on sale now
And, if you’ve read this far and you’d like to support this author/editor, you can buy my books anywhere books are sold; here’s a handy link to my Bookshop UK page:https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/emmaread . Leaving a review on Amazon is always super helpful to your favourite authors too, even if you haven’t bought the book there. It does magical things to the visibility algorithm and puts our books in front of fresh eyes. And, if you didn’t know, borrowing the book from your local library helps authors too, via the Public Lending Right scheme - yep we get paid per book borrowed, so go ahead and take out all your fave authors books!
See you all soon, with more news, and editing/writing tips, bye!
Another useful post, thank you. You've explained the difficulty of balancing plot reveals and reader interest well and it's come at the right time for me: I'm 21,000 words into the first draft of my second novel. I've sketched out the plot line and I know researched the back story but your post will help me drip feed it in.