How to revise your novel (part 4)

Originally posted: September 7, 2020

This is the fourth post in a series about novel revision. Part 1 considered characters and pace. Part two covered conflict, flashbacks, and thought vs. action.  Part 3 tackled beginnings, endings, and dialogue. Today it’s that old saw: show don’t tell.

SHOW NOT TELL

Here it is, the single most common weakness of every work-in-progress: too much telling, not enough showing. Sometimes we tell instead of show. Other times we show and tell, illustrating a scene in perfect detail only to explain to the reader the very thing they’ve just witnessed. That’s how worried we are that the reader won’t get it. In the case of the latter, the solution is a quick backspace. In the case of the former, the work is more difficult.

Adjectives and adverbs are telling signs. Instead of saying Mary eyed Bob suspiciously, describe what’s suspicious in her manner. What does suspicion look and feel like? Instead of the adverb, show us the feeling or action.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but: you don’t need adjectives on dialogue tags. He said furiously. She asked anxiously. They cried dolefully. STOP. Stick to he said and she asked. If dialogue is accompanied by an emotion, find a way to embody the emotion.

BE SPECIFIC

Abstraction is another telling sign. First drafts, by their nature, tend to lean heavily on words like suddenly and something. I think of these as placeholders we drop in the ground as we write toward a first draft. In second and third and seventh drafts though it’s important to return to those placeholders and fully articulate the suddenness or what the something is. Don’t tell the reader the lights went out suddenly. Make the lights flame out in a way that feels sudden for character (and by extension reader). Hot tip: most of the time you can just delete the word suddenly without doing anything else.

Ditto vague descriptions. You could tell us there were eagles in the sky and rain on the way, sure. Or you could show the eagles “beating muscled wings, threading in and out of black thunderclouds” as Valeria Luiselli does in her Lost Children Archive. You could tell us Edgar feels vulnerable or show him grasping opposite wrists as Ian Williams does in Reproduction. Weeks after finishing the novel, this visual has stuck with me, more importantly the feeling of tenderness it inspired has lingered. That’s the power of specificity.

FILTERING AND MEDIATION

Stories are most immediate and immersive when they can get right in close. But too often writers filter the story through an unnecessary lens. Compare two versions of the same scene:

“Outside, Gillian noticed two neighbours squabbling. She saw them jab their fingers at each other across their property lines and heard their voices growing louder.”

“Outside, Gillian’s neighbours squabbled. They jabbed their fingers at each other across their property lines, voices rising.”

There’s no need to tell the reader that Gillian is seeing and hearing the action. Remove the filter words notice and saw and what happens? The pace quickens and the reader is drawn closer to the action.

Here’s another telling move: mediating flashbacks. Compare two version of the same flashback:

“Jim thought of Blake with a smile, remembering how they first met on a plane to Mexico City. They were stuck in the middle aisle, sandwiched between two frat boys.”

“Jim and Blake met on a plane to Mexico City, in the middle aisle, sandwiched between two frat boys.”

IN CONCLUSION

Narration and exposition have a place in fiction but if that’s all you are doing, the reader will skim. Stick to your bones fiction is writing that reveals, that leaves room for interpretation. Let’s say you have this line: “Marty served his guests tea.” That’s fine but consider this version instead: “Marty’s mugs were a motley collection, branded freebies from conferences and radio station give-aways, the white ones stained with years of tea and coffee, most of them chipped.” The mugs show Marty’s mugs and the reader may draw further conclusions about his personality and home life from those mugs.

Writers have a tendency to worry too much about the reader. Take my hand, dear Reader, we seem to say. Allow me to be your tour guide on this journey. NO. STOP. Create the world, animate the characters, then get out of the way. Let the reader wander unchaperoned. Trust them to read between the lines and connect the dots. Be open to the narrative being understood in a different way than you intended. Your story will be stronger for a multiplicity of interpretations.

The next post (the last in the series) is a laundry list of advice.