Dear Too Much …
In the spirit of over-explaining, I’ll suggest FOUR ways:
1. Notice when you’re giving more than a paragraph of exposition to any one item. Even if you eventually decide all of it must stay, the More Than One Paragraph Alarm will help you pause, consider, and justify.
2. You needn’t fully explain a thing when it first comes up. Strong storytelling is often about scattering seeds that eventually bloom into a full garden. A brief mention of something here, another brief mention of it later, and so on… until the reader is walking through that garden.
3. If it’s a first draft, let yourself over-explain. Don’t stop your momentum by second-guessing. You will revise–many times–so for now, just get the story out.
4. Trust your readers to get it. They will.
Happy writing!
The Editor
The Editor, Deborah Halverson, has been editing books for thirty years and specializes in picture books, Middle Grade/Young Adult fiction and nonfiction, and New Adult fiction. For her editorial guidance in making your manuscript ready for submission to agents and publishers or for self-publishing, click Editorial services. Learn more in her books: Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies and Writing New Adult Fiction
Love this: “Strong storytelling is often about scattering seeds that eventually bloom into a full garden. A brief mention of something here, another brief mention of it later, and so on… until the reader is walking through that garden.”
Thanks, Sue! *waving at you*
The More Than One Paragraph Alarm sounds like a wonderful tool for dealing with info dumps. Writers are always warned against those, and now I have an actual identifier. Thank you.
Yay! I’m glad that advice spoke to you in that way, and now you have new tool. Happy writing, Joan!
Always right on advice!! I wish that I had known these things 18 years ago!
Thanks, Carol. Your YA novel HALF-TRUTHS is fabulous — certainly no over-explaining there!