Every day at six o’clock a meek beep emanates from my son’s room for about ten seconds. It used to happen at five o’clock until we sprung forward. Five or six, doesn’t matter. I hear it. I accept it. I ignore it, lock, stock and buzzer.
It means nothing.
And therein lies the beauty of real life! Some things are meaningless. But in fiction – even and most especially realistic fiction like women’s fiction – every bit must have meaning — and not just to the author!
Exhausting! I know.
Even though women’s fiction is meant to mimic real people, emotions, situations and life – in real life there’s a lot of downtime and a lot of things that simply aren’t important. There are even people who don’t add value to our lives. There are things going on that do not impact our personal stories.
In women’s fiction – everything matters.
If it’s in there, it should be important or your reader will probably wonder why you’re wasting his or her time with it. Does everything need to be evident immediately? No, but stuff needs to make sense and be clear eventually, unlike the beep in my house which will never make sense. Not now or eventually.
I also purport that you can’t ignore anything in women’s fiction – but I do not mean your characters can’t ignore with intention. They can. We cannot. Writers cannot (should not) ignore anything within our pages. Each action should have a reaction, each stretch of dialogue should have a purpose, each character should have a raison d’être. If you are able to ignore something in your writing – how do you think someone else will react to it? (You know, someone who didn’t give birth to you or owes you money.)
I realized that my many-times-already revised novel had meaningless parts. Here’s what I asked myself as my index finger circled over the delete key:
If I remove [this section] will the story still make sense? (Hint: if the answer is yes, it’s time to cut and paste that section into an outtakes doc.) I then read the section without the part in question. It was hard to step away and discern that my hard earned words weren’t needed but a better story is the result. Sometimes having those extra words is the only way I can get to the heart of the matter, so I never consider extra parts as having been foolish or a waste of time.
Does this dialogue lead anywhere? (Hint: if the dialogue only offers information and does not present a problem, solve a problem or better yet, offer a combo of both, it’s time to cut and past that dialogue into an outtakes doc.) I don’t know if I made this up but I call dialogue that purely gives info as “having tea.” Now, I don’t drink tea (I’m a coffee gal) but I envision ladies drinking tea, pinkies up, sharing the news and gossip of the day. Bo-ring. Not that you can’t impart information in a string of dialogue, but in my opinion it has to be more than that.
Is this character unique? (Hint: if the character in question is doing the same thing as another character, you might be able to do a little character melding.) By unique I don’t mean wears fancy hats — I mean unique to the situation and story. I wrote a short story where the main character had two sisters, until a writer-friend pointed out the sisters were exactly the same. If my mc was going to have two, they should be different. My choice was initially to give the mc one sister. With rewrites she ended up with no sisters, but it taught me a lesson. Every character must have a unique role within the story.
I know that as we write women’s fiction, everything has meaning to us. And that’s ok. It’s hard to admit that might not be the case for an agent or editor or reader. We’re attached to our words and our characters. They’re real to us (shh! I won’t tell anyone) and sometimes we can’t imagine that something about them or their story is unnecessary.
The way I see it, as authors, we have two options: delete it or make it matter.
Any examples of either (or both) you’d like to share as I head off to delete a circle of chatting cousins from my first chapter? Who invited them anyway? (Oh crud, that was me, wasn’t it?)
Now THERE’S a quotable line:
“As authors, we have two options: delete it or make it matter.”
Amen.
Hi Keith,
Now I must adopt the Nike motto and JUST DO IT. It’s amazing when something is deleted and you thought it was essential and it’s not. Humbling, infuriating, invigorating.
🙂
Amy
I need this reminder as I edit my novel. I’ve been hitting the delete button myself after reading my earlier dialogue. Great post! 🙂
Hi Jennifer,
I’m so attached to certain parts of my novel (Chapter 1 specifically) that I just keep going back to it to see what can be changed or deleted. I think there’s an uncle who’s identity can change a bit and then he’s a keeper. Whew. I’d have missed him.
🙂
Amy
Could not agree more with what you’re saying here, Amy Sue, and you say it well — love the example of the tone coming from your son’s room. (Ignore those aliens. Just kidding, lol.) Even a red herring must have a purpose.
But why in women’s fiction? This is true in all fiction (and, I’d argue, in quality narrative nonfiction, too). Superfluity in almost any expressive medium is distractive, misleading, confusing.
Thanks,
-p.
Hi Porter,
I address women’s fiction only because that’s what I write — and I try to focus the posts here on what relates to women’s fiction specifically — but you are 100% correct. I also agree that it’s the same in narrative non-fiction — essays are always better when they don’t distract with extraneous thoughts and info.
Thanks for your input!
Amy
Hi, and thanks for this thoughtful post!
Although I’m fairly organized and try to outline a story beforehand, when writing I have to let the muse flow through me and see what interesting, unforeseen ideas develop. Not everything will ultimately be relevant, but some of it will be so amazingly, surprisingly connected to the ultimate big picture of the story.
I think of the first draft as making the clay, the raw material, and in the second and third drafts I sculpt and refine it. Then it becomes very clear what is not important to the story and what is.
@shellesumners
Shelle,
It was and is a learning process for me. I thought that a scene was fundamental to the book but realized in a late night epiphany that not only was it not fundamental, it was extraneous. The next morning, I cut and pasted it into my outtakes file. I call this version of my novel “Crazy Freaking Redux” for a reason.
Good luck with all your writing!
Amy
Thanks for the reminder to kill our little darlings, Amy. The first time I needed to slice and dice,when my second draft churned out at 832 pages-Yikes-I struggled with the delete key. But having reached what I hope will be the last draft (lucky 7) I see the process as a great way to gauge how far I’ve come as a writer. What I recognize now as dribble, was off my critique radar in earlier drafts. Getting a book ready for an agent and ultimately publication can be a long process, but it is rewarding when we can see how far we’ve come. Wishing you the best on your revisions.
Jocosa,
I stopped counting rewrites. 🙁 I do know this is my third round of revisions with my agent and every pass makes it better.
I think you win with having written 832 pages! Good for you on using the delete key to find the real story within your story. I’m sure that wasn’t easy, but was worth it!
Keep going!
Amy
Another great post, and so helpful! Just sent one dull sister and an overly depressed friend to the recycle bin…
Ferris,
Good for you. Dull sisters and overly depressed friends probably belong in the recycle bin…unless of course they don’t! 😉
I’m sure you’re well on your way. Like with so many things, admitting there is a problem with our manuscripts is the first step to making them great!
Thanks for chiming in!
Amy
Amy, great post! And I actually call the file where my deleted prose/dialogue/whatnot end up as “Outtakes.” Usually these former gems are pieces that I’ve cut and pasted to a blank page with the intention of moving them to another part of the story. Next thing I know they become unnecessary and deemed completely useless. Weird how that works.
Totally not afraid to ax my darlings. Off with their heads if they don’t make sense! 🙂
I’m going to copy and paste your guidelines (hope that’s okay). They’ll work as an enforcer while I cut/past/delete. Damn, I love chopping. (Are you sensing the Tale of Two Cities theme? lol)
((hugs)) to you, Kath!
Another wonderful post, Amy. One of the things you mentioned early in the post is that “things” don’t need to be evident immediately (but that they need to be there for a purpose – be it scenes, characters, plot points, description, dialogue). I like that reminder that we don’t have to spell it all out in a linear fashion and spoon-feed the reader.
In my first WIP, I took an entire character out, chopped a few scenes that really were only there to ‘lighten the mood’ (which my readers totally saw through). Then I applied your test of “does it work without it?” many times. In fact I’m finding I’m doing that as I write my current WIP. Great points about dialogue, too.Thanks, as always, for great posts.
You’re so right, Amy! You’re making me reconsider cutting a few characters from my MS. I’ve been debating it for a while now, and just haven’t garnered up the courage yet! One, at least, can almost certainly go. Or not…but maybe. See my dilemma? Thanks for another great post!
Cutting unneeded characters and scenes can be hard, but we all agree it has to be done. In an early draft of the novel I’m currently working on, I thought the son of one of the main characters, who was also the father of another main character, was important, mainly because he filled out the family I had originally imagined. But then, fortunately for me, one of my readers pointed out that he was useless and could easily be combined with the grandfather. She was right, and it made for a stronger novel. A technique I find helpful for evaluating scenes is to make a scene map in which I list each scene with a description of what happens, what it’s supposed to do, and what it needs. Very often I discover that a scene does nothing for the novel, so out it goes.