noveldoctor

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

~Anton Chekhov

Words are a writer’s currency. But too many words – or the wrong ones – will devalue a written work faster than an oil spill devalues an oil company’s stock.

This isn’t news to you. You know all too well the struggle to find the right words to tell your story. (Put down the thesaurus. That’s not what I mean. Have you even been reading this blog?) And so you write. And write. And write some more. And you finally finish your first draft.

And yet when you go back to read what you’ve written, it just doesn’t “feel” right. It’s not like you’re missing any key ingredients. The characters are believable. The plot is moving along just fine. There’s plenty of lovely description to set the scene.

But something’s wrong.

Now, it could just be that your writing sucks. (This is where you look around the room to see who else I might be talking to, because surely it isn’t you. I mean, your crit partners loved your short story about the fruit fly that preferred vegetables. “It’s a work of literary genius,” “a powerful metaphor about love and loss,” “like Animal Farm, but with insects,” they told you. Well, their actual words were, “it didn’t make me want to vomit,” but that’s essentially the same thing, right?)

Or it could be that you’re simply saying too much.

There are lots of ways “too many words” can steal the power from a story. Here are the three most common that I run into:

The Telling

I love the Chekhov quote at the top of this post. I haven’t found a better one to describe the difference between “telling” and “showing.” But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. You already know why showing is generally better than telling. So why, then, do you have an entire paragraph dedicated to telling us what the protagonist is anticipating immediately preceding paragraphs that so beautifully show us exactly what happens?

There’s nothing wrong with some internal thoughts here and there. Nor is there anything wrong with the occasional telling. But there’s rarely a need to have both the telling and the showing. I bet you can find at least a dozen places in your first draft where you do this. Yes, showing usually takes more words than telling (not always). But the showing words aren’t the problem. Trim the redundant telling. Your readers will thank you. (In their hearts.)

The Describing

There are very few writers who can do detailed description well. I’m talking about the sort of detail that reveals every shadow and wrinkle on a bruised white rose lit by twilight, or the font (and foundry it came from) that graces the title page of the book buried beneath a pile of similarly dust-deviled tomes that the protagonist reaches for with paint-stained fingers (Sherwin-Williams Rookwood Amber). (See? I’m not one of those writers. I’m okay with that.)

But just because we don’t have that skill doesn’t mean we don’t attempt it. What happens, though, is we end up with wordy descriptions that tell us stuff we don’t really care to know (or need to know). For example, if you simply tell me that a bowling ball rolls off the top shelf and lands on your hero’s head, that paints a clear enough picture for me to see it happen. Do I need to know that it was a 15 pound red and black Brunswick Evil Siege bowling ball? Well, maybe I do. Does the specific brand/weight/color play into the story elsewhere? Or are you being intentionally over-descriptive because it makes the scene funnier? In those cases, fine. But otherwise? I’ll paint the bowling ball black (or green if I actually owned one of my own that happened to be green) and assume it’s heavy enough to do the necessary damage.

I know what you’re thinking. All those writing books tell you to be specific. Hell, I’ll tell you that right here, too. Be specific. But…learn when to leave the rest of the picture to the reader’s imagination. If it’s not critical to the story (or the writer’s voice) that the character uses a Rachael Ray blue porcelain 10-inch skillet to kill the spider, just let the character use a plain ol’ skillet.

The Dialoging

I love this one. Dialogue is one of my favorite things to write (and edit). Let’s start here: Take a minute to listen to real-life dialogue. Now, imagine transcribing that verbatim. It doesn’t quite look right, does it. One reason for this is the fact that you can’t actually layer multiple conversations on top of each other. If two people are talking at the same time, you can say so in your novel, but you’ll still have to run their words one sentence after another because you can’t stamp them on top of each other. (Well, you could, but that would look like a printer error.) Because of this, if you include every actual spoken word, dialogue that only takes a moment to speak in real time can stretch on for pages when written. Think of your written dialogue as spoken dialogue that’s been edited not only for content, but also for clarity and rhythm.

Also, real conversation has lots of non-words and repeated-ad-nauseum words in it, things like ums and ers and likes and plenty of unintelligible grunts and groans. Put all of them on the page and your readers will wonder what sorts of drugs you abuse.

But I still haven’t gotten to the biggest wordiness problem with dialogue: hijacking the character to deliver information readers should get elsewhere. You’ll recognize this dialogue by the way your character suddenly appears to be a puppet for the plot rather than a real human being.

“Is the sword shaped like a cross with a sharp dagger end that’s dangling over your head making you nervous, Edward?”

“No, Jacob. But you should be scared because I’m baring my fangs right now and they’re really menacing because they’re sharp and I’m smiling at the same time which is ironic and therefore underscores my obvious lack of fear.”

Please. Don’t. Go. There.

Instead, establish the scene so we know Edward is standing under the cross with the sharp dagger end. Then all you have to write is this:

“Nervous?”

Edward looks up at the cross then back to Jacob. He smiles, then bares his fangs.

“Not even a little.”

I know, my example is over the top. I did that on purpose. But you get the idea. If you need to deliver information to the reader about something in a scene, only use dialogue if it’s the sort of information the character would organically include in the course of the conversation.

Well, that’s all the questionable wisdom I have for you today, friends. Now get back to that second draft and start chopping.

Version One.

Benny’s cherry red Converse sneakers squeaked their delight on the Asian Mahogany Pergo laminate floor while his mother stirred the Nestle Semi-Sweet morsels into the cookie dough using the wood-handled Le Creuset spatula with the blue non-stick silicone surface that never failed her.

“Now?” asked Benny, his brown eyes barely visible beneath the blue, red and white of the too-big Chicago Cubs baseball cap.

“Not yet,” she answered, and she stirred some more, thankful for her Paderno copper mixing bowl and her Okite Creama Botticino countertop and a pair of neon orange Crocs that might elicit snide comments from women who wear Giuseppe Zanottis and pretend not to enjoy shopping at Pottery Barn, but invite nothing but praise from her size-eight feet in the safety of her two-story brownstone.

“But I’m hungry now!” Benny picked at the Spiderman Band-Aid on his left wrist.

“Almost,” she said, a little more sharply than she intended, but Benny didn’t seem to notice. He had wandered into the twenty-by-twenty-four living room and grabbed the RCA remote from the back of the brown leather Lazy-Boy recliner and was aiming it at the 42″ LCD TV.

“Can I watch SpongeBob on Nickelodeon while I eat cookie dough?” He asked, stuffing his free hand in the pocket of his stonewashed Lee jeans.

“Sure.” She looked up from the copper bowl as the TV lit the room with an image of a familiar face partially hidden by Ray-Ban Aviators. “Wait, leave it,” she said. And then she wished she hadn’t.

“Hey, it’s daddy. What’s daddy doing on TV?”

The camera zoomed out to reveal her husband wearing his favorite black Hugo Boss suit as he was being stuffed into the back of a blue and white police car. Benny looked over at his mother with a puzzled expression. This is when she dropped the Le Creuset spatula, fell to the Asian Mahogany Pergo floor, and hit her head on the half-open door of the Fisher & Paykel Dishdrawer.

Version Two.

Benny’s cherry red Converse sneakers squeaked their delight on the mahogany laminate floor while his mother stirred chocolate chips into the cookie dough using the wood-handled spatula with the non-stick surface that never failed her.

“Now?” asked Benny, his brown eyes barely visible beneath the blue, red and white of the too-big Chicago Cubs baseball cap.

“Not yet,” she answered, and she stirred some more, thankful for her copper mixing bowl and her Okite countertop and a pair of neon orange Crocs that might elicit snide comments from women who wear Giuseppe Zanottis and pretend not to enjoy shopping at Pottery Barn, but invite nothing but praise from her size-eight feet in the safety of her two-story brownstone.

“But I’m hungry now!” Benny picked at the Spiderman Band-Aid on his left wrist.

“Almost,” she said, a little more sharply than she intended, but Benny didn’t seem to notice. He had wandered into the living room and grabbed the remote from the back of the leather recliner and was aiming it at the TV.

“Can I watch SpongeBob while I eat cookie dough?” He asked, stuffing his free hand in the pocket of his stonewashed jeans.

“Sure.” She looked up from the bowl as the TV lit the room with an image of a familiar face wearing a pained expression partially hidden by Ray-Ban Aviators. “Wait, leave it,” she said. And then she wished she hadn’t.

“Hey, it’s daddy. What’s daddy doing on TV?”

The camera zoomed out to reveal her husband being stuffed into the back of a police car. Benny looked over at his mother with a puzzled expression. This is when she dropped the spatula, fell to the floor, and hit her head on the half-open door of the dishwasher.

And now, the explanation.

First of all, you’ll notice that there isn’t a huge difference between the first version of this scene and the second. This illustrates a very important principal of the editing process: it’s not always about sweeping changes – sometimes it’s all about the little tweaks. (BTW, some of my former cubicle-dwelling neighbors hate that word “tweak,” so I’m using it here mostly to annoy them in that friendly, poke-in-the-ribs-with-a-stick sorta way. Hi old editing pals!)

So what’s wrong with the first version? Well, it certainly does a good job of providing specific details. But sometimes, too much specificity can actually detract from a scene by drawing attention away from the heart of the story: the characters themselves. At worst, name-brand references (which, in moderation, add welcome verisimilitude) become little more than product-placement ads and the whole scene starts to look more like a catalog than a story.

So let’s look at the changes I made. Overall, I made the editorial call that there were simply too many brand names here and that some had to go. So which ones? Well, I cut the brand name and specific color of the flooring because “mahogany” and “laminate” give the reader enough information to picture it. And everyone knows what “chocolate chips” are – we don’t need to know they’re from Nestle unless that’s critical to the story somehow. (If the dad works for Hershey? Now that could give it purpose.)

The Cubs cap is perfect. Since most of us know the color of a Cub’s hat, you might wonder if we need the “blue, red and white”? No. But I liked the cadence of that sentence. So it stays.

You could easily argue to keep “Paderno” except that few people know about Paderno so eliminating the brand reference is no great loss. A copper bowl is unique enough to add texture to the setting. I kept the brand name for the countertop because it implies something about the mother’s knowledge of kitchens, and therefore (possibly) about how much she enjoys cooking. I edited out the color reference only because there are already so many details in this sentence. I might find a way to re-insert it somewhere else in the story because Italian words are so fun to read. Notice that I kept the rest of the details. Even if you don’t know who Giuseppe Zanotti is (and I sure don’t), it’s clear from context that the women are all about image over practicality. This contrast to the mom and her neon orange Crocs immediately tells you a ton about her that would have been lost with a generic description of the Pottery Barn ladies.

Spiderman stays. I mean, c’mon. It’s Spiderman.

Okay, the next paragraph was an easy fix. We don’t need to know how big the room is. We don’t need to know the brand of the remote (who would know the difference, anyway, except someone who has seen multiple remotes including the mentioned brand). And we don’t even need to know what kind or size of TV is in the room. The reader will draw his own picture there and that’s perfectly fine.

Two more easy cuts in the next paragraph. However… if part of what makes the Benny character unique is an unusual speech pattern whereby he always adds unnecessary details, then I’d keep his mention of Nickelodeon. I can cut “Lees” with ease, however.

I kept the Ray-Bans because it’s a familiar visual. Most people would see this exactly as the writer intended.

In the next paragraph I took the husband out of his suit. Did I have to? No. It might be important to the character. But the emotional impact of the scene is all about the mother’s reaction to seeing her husband being arrested. Unless the suit has a role to play in the story, we don’t need it here.

And finally, the last cuts are obvious. It simply takes too long for her to fall if we have to note every little detail of her Garden State moment. (Hey, it’s a movie reference. Didja get it? If not, ask someone who’s seen it. Or rent it yourself.)

And there you go.

As always, this is just one editor’s opinion. But if nothing else, I hope you understand the main point. What was the point? Um… you could have figured it out just from the title of the post. But thanks for reading this far anyway. I like you better than the people who didn’t.

Hey, tomorrow I’m introducing the next Noveldoctor writing contest. Sharpen your virtual pens. It’s going to be a good one.

Until then, happy self-editing.