Creating Enough Fire without Burning Down the House
Fire, or passion, is what draws readers into a story. How do you keep enough personal fire or passion in your story, yet not be too big a presence? If the writer’s presence takes over, interpreting and overwriting, being the narrator too obviously, the reader can’t connect with the story itself.
It becomes a three-way conversation—not ideal. Readers want to interact directly with your story, not have you intercede.
Narrator presence
Have you ever read a story that had too much narrator presence? Beginning book writers often feel they must interpret for a reader--tell why something happened, give too much background, rather than let the story tell itself.
It’s indeed like buiding a good campfire. You get it going. It lights up the dark. The reader approaches, tentatively at first. If your fire is blazing and inviting, maybe they’ll linger.
What if you stand there, talking the reader’s head off, telling them about what wood you used and why it’s so hard to build good campfires in this particular spot, pulling their attention away from the fire itself?
Not a huge deal with friends around a campfire. But in story, it’s called overwriting.
Overwriting examples
Overwriting is an overabundance of narrator presence, essentially revealing your insecurity with how you’ve told your story.
You feel the reader won’t quite get it. So you step in to overexplain.
Overwriting sneaks in quite innocently. In teaching over the past decades, I’ve read lots of it in student manuscripts, so I want to share a few anonymous examples—all used with permission.
Example 1:
The trashcan smelled really bad, like a million rotted apples.
A million rotten apples gives us the whole picture of how bad things smelled. We don’t need the “smelled really bad” as well.
Example 2:
Jason’s hands shook and fear raced his throat. He felt scared.
“He felt scared” is overwriting—redundant. As if the writer wasn’t sure. I’d also just choose one body sensation (either the shaking hands or throat fear). More isn’t better here.
Example 3:
I longed to be outside, smell the trees and feel the spring air. Nature always gave me strength. I loved the great outdoors.
The final line, “I loved the great outdoors,” is overwriting. We already get that from the previous two sentences. I might also omit the “Nature always gave me strength” right here, evolving that idea further along in the story as we get more curious.
Trimming down
No doubt you were ahead of me here—you already picked out the overwriting, right? Those places where the author stood too close to the fire, talking to the reader instead of just letting the reader enjoy warmth of the story.
How might you trim down these sentences? Here’s where I’d go . . .
The trashcan smelled like a million rotted apples.
Fear raced his throat.
I longed to be outside, smell the trees and feel the spring air.
Do you notice any increase in tension, now that the overwriting is deleted? I agree, these sentences are ripe for more refinement in revision, but we’ve helped their fire a lot already.
No author interpretation. That definitely ups my interest as a reader.
Let the fire blaze on its own
Your job, as the author, is to feed the fire, not worry it to ashes. You let a fire blaze on its own, after it has enough oxygen, kindling, dry wood.
If you keep poking it every few seconds, the blaze will probably die out.
Publishers, agents, editors—and readers!—look for stories that stand alone, fiery and bright, burning without any interpretation from the author.
Keep your passion for your story alive but take out your desire for interpretation.
Your weekly writing exercise
This week, practice your fire-building skills.
Choose two pages of your recent work. Look for any place where you
restated the obvious
added more background or feeling or information just in case the reader didn’t get it
said in dialogue what was already said in narrative or vice versa
Strike through those sentences and read the paragraphs without this overwriting. Do you feel a stronger blaze?Photo by Cullan Smith on Unsplash