Humans like to share. We like sharing our money, our time, or our ice cream, but we like sharing our ideas and advice even more. It makes us feel cool and important. It’s why we build libraries, publishing houses, and PTAs.
But based on the number of blank stares I get when I offer unsolicited advice, we don’t like receiving information nearly as much as we enjoy giving it. When the catchphrase around the house becomes “Why are you telling me this?” perhaps things have gone a bit far. Or perhaps not. . . Maybe we just need to be more clever about how we do it.
This is certainly true of fiction. I burned through The Hobbit as a second grader and put The Fellowship of the Rings down after 30 pages. The first novel trickles information to the reader as part of the action, while the second forgoes action in favor of large passages of infodump and side-helpings of scenery.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, especially after a brutal revision of Plague Runners. (This is the same manuscript I took to New York in March.) I had to cut roughly 30,000 words from the manuscript (length of DARTS+RINGS) to correct pacing problems and make room for plot essentials. I had to strip the story of unnecessary backstory and scenes that were cute but didn’t tie in with the larger plot.
Fortunately, I got some good advice from an agent and a professional editor, and Plague Runners has improved dramatically.
It’s been helpful for me to think about over-sharing in terms described by Howard Taylor on the podcast Writing Excuses 10.20: How Do I Write a Story, Not an Encyclopedia? They defined four skill-levels for sharing information, and I tried to calculate (in excel) how each of those play out for me:
Every skill-level has its purpose, but new writers tend to rely more heavily on Level 1 and Level 2. Level 4 has the characteristics of 3 but also includes layers of utility: not only does it move the plot along and provide info to protagonist and reader, but will also illuminate aspects of a character’s personality, provide amusement, foreshadow future conflicts, tie back to subplots, and possibly build emotional connections with the reader.
It’s tempting as a writer to over-share. So much work has been put into the creation of a world. To combat this, I keep a scrapyard document. It’s a lot easier for me to move a lovely, but uneeded, paragraph to the scrapyard doc than it is to delete it completely. For the really good stuff that still needs to go, I consider using it in sequel, or making a standalone novella. For Plague Runners, I have a whole novella planned, if the content I cut doesn’t end up in the sequel. De-cluttering is a lot easier when you can loosen your grip on it in stages.
What have I learned in this process? I’ve learned that the kind of story you tell depends on how you relay information. For those you with a little more time, stick around and enjoy some opening lines of the same story, written at the varying skill levels. Then tell me (here or on facebook) which you like best.
If you’ve gotten too much information already, don’t hesitate to bow out. Everybody has a threshold, and romantic mystery really isn’t my strong point. . .Cheers!
Level 1 – Describe-and-Snooze
Mr. Suffolk was born where the greenest fields in all of England begin at white cliffs and roll inland for miles until they are cut short by the autoroute to London. The grass on the downs mimic the waves beneath the cliffs, a green mirror to the blue beneath, and the servants had been amply informed that Mr. Suffolk wanted to be buried there.
To the servants this was good news. The Suffolk Estate had prospered under his care, and as Mr. Suffolk wasn’t exactly old yet, his commitment to the location meant a good many years of meaningful service and a modest pension for the servants. To the butler, Robert, this was exceptionally good news. He didn’t fancy finding new employment as his age, though he was exactly old either, and Robert felt at home among the other servants. Mark and Mary had both been trained in the finest kitchens. Bill kept the estate trimmed to the last blade of grass, and the sound of the Bently’s wheels on gravel as Godfrey pulled up to return Mr. Suffolk to his home after a long day usually brought a smile to Robert’s face.
Robert particularly liked Anna, the maid, and her soft manner of speaking, with the sort of affection that lives unspoken in the heart, when it might better be served to speak it aloud and let fortune play its hand.
In fact, only two things bothered Robert about his current job: Mr. Suffolk’s gun collection (because guns were patently dangerous) and it’s curator, Mr. Jasper, who had a nasty habit of bringing up old grievances—the pay raise that everyone else had gotten, for instance—and picking at them until the entire serving staff felt like the cells of a festering old wound that couldn’t get a spot of antiseptic. Some days Bob wondered who would be the first to reach for Suffolk’s prized Sig Sauer, and put an end to all the complaining. Or worse.
The worst, Bob admitted though, was Tuesday. On Tuesdays Jasper disassembled a few guns from the collection, cleaned them, and reassembled them. Then he loaded them and fired a few hundred rounds to be sure each was in fine working order. As the shooting range was adjacent to both the main house and the servants quarters, with no proper sound proofing, there was no escape from the noise.
There was never any escape from Jasper.
Level 2 – Maid-and-Butler: The Unnatural Dialogue
On Tuesday morning, Bob was sitting at the common breakfast table in the servants quarters, trying to get his last cufflink hitched when Ann walked in, looking tired and old.
“Ann,” he said, barely nodding. Her presence was comfortable, like a well-worn coat, one that has hung around for so long that you almost don’t notice anymore.
“Bob,” she replied back, pouring herself a cup of coffee, eyeing him coolly.
Bob was tempted to forego the cufflink entirely. Mr Suffolk never entertained important guests on Tuesdays, and so it’s necessity was questionable. “It isn’t like Mr. Suffolk would demand it,” he muttered to himself.”
He noticed that Ann was still staring at him. “Everything alright?”
“No, Bob, everything is not all right. As you know, it’s Tuesday.”
Bob gave up on the cuff-link. “It is, Ann. It’s the day that Jasper cleans and tests Suffolk’s enormous gun collection. The Winchesters. The Sig Sauers.” Bob waved his hand to indicate all the others.
“Cleaning, and shooting, and cleaning!” Ann complained, gesturing a bit wildly with her coffee. “It makes no sense to have a shooting range next to our quarters. It’s as if Suffolk wants us to suffer on Tuesdays. And to think of Jasper over there, glowering, and aiming, and glowering again. It makes everything so much worse.”
Bob snorted. “Suffolk never should have denied Jasper that pay raise. Ever since then, things seem to be so much louder around here. . .”
Level 3: Interwoven Details
“Do you ever feel like you’re repeating yourself?” Anna asked when Bob entered the servant’s breakfast area on Tuesday morning.
Bob’s finger slipped on the crisp sleeve, dropping the mother-of-pearl cufflink onto the tile floor, cursing his unusually sweaty palms. He stooped to pick it up, but dropped it again, startled by the sudden discharge of a Winchester next door.
Crack!
Jasper always started with the Winchester. Mr. Suffolk always wanted on display. Then Jasper would move on to the Sig Sauers, and then the Beretta. By the time he got to the Colts, Mr. Suffolk would be in the shooting range too, looking over Jasper’s shoulder and telling him which guns to prep for the display the following week.
“Yes,” Bob said, fitting the cufflink finally in place. “Every Tuesday morning feels that way.”
“Every Tuesday morning,” Anna agreed, pouring him a cup of coffee and adding creamer and sugar. Bob wasn’t quite sure how she knew his exact preference. He couldn’t recall ever telling her, but they’d worked together for many years already. Perhaps he’d told her once before.
It was a ritual they’d enjoyed since the beginning, the maid and the butler starting the day by sharing coffee together, trying to ignore the Tuesday morning gunfire. Today though, the gunfire felt particularly irate, as if Jasper had left the range’s doors open again.
Anna seemed to notice it too. “Perhaps you should talk to Mr. Suffolk about Jasper’s raise? He listens to you.”
She raised her eyebrow gently.
“I will.” He promised. “I’ll do it at lunch.”
Level 4 – Transparent Worldbuilding
Bob awoke in a cold sweat, throwing off his covers in a frantic leap from his bed. Somebody was going to murder Suffolk.
Bob listened to the thunder of his heart and felt the grain of the hardwood floor beneath his feet. He suddenly wished he’d taken better care of himself over the last few years. His blood pressure was too high to be leaping about like this.
“It’s just a dream, Bob,” he muttered.
Around him, evidence of his nightly struggle with the nightmare assailed him. Alcohol bottles. Sleeping pills. Abandoned self-help books. His sheets were twisted around the blankets and thoroughly soaked. His pillows and bolster had fallen at the foot of the bed, and one ponderous black sock hung on the head board. God, what a night! He could still smell the shot-gun smoke from his dream, and see the blood pooling on the marble floor of the main house.
Bob blinked his eyes and drove the image away. “Just a dream, Bob” he said again for emphasis. He took a deep breath and counted to five before exhaling, and then limped into his morning routine, though it was still too early to do so.
Later, at the breakfast table, Anna looked at him from beneath tired eyelids and layers of makeup that didn’t hide the fact that she hadn’t been sleeping well, either.
“Are you feeling okay, Anna?”
“Robert.” Her gentle voice caught, and she pushed back a strand of fading brown curl.
There had been a time when he thought he’d loved her, when he thought he might ask Mr. Suffolk for one of the larger suites reserved for the married staff. During those months, she’d almost never called him “Bob,” and her shy smile at the breakfast table had been the highlight of every day.
“Anna. Are you feeling okay?” He repeated the question earnestly. Her utterance of “Robert,” and his accidental expression of caring had shattered the meaningless veneer of morning banter.
“Bob,” she corrected herself, trying to recover. “It’s nothing.”
He put down the rebellious cufflink. “Anna. I know that look. What is it?”
Anna wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Something awful is going to happen today. I can feel it.”
Bob’s scalp prickled and his recurring nightmare came back full force. “You had the dream!”
“Suffolk,” she whispered and they locked eyes. “Jasper’s going to kill Suffolk.”
They were reaching for the French doors when the first shots of the morning rang out.
TO BE CONTINUED. . .(MAYBE)
Which story version do you like best? 1,2,3, or 4?
Thanks for the insights. Even though #1 felt more familiar, and I enjoyed the description, 4 wins for following the wise rule of “less is more.”
Do you have recommendations of other works that meet this criterion, in the fantasy fiction or historical fiction genre?
Who is the celebrity pictured with Ann? He could be named Jim Bob, for all I know about movie stars.
Labeling a particular work as a #4 is difficult, because within each work one is likely to find #1’s and #2’s.
I actually think Patrick Rothfuss does a pretty good job hitting the 3’s and 4’s, though it’s hard to know without having the final book to see how everything ties together. There are moments when it feels like he’s describing too much or adding too much, but I don’t recall any maid-and-butler in Name of the Wind or Wise Man’s Fear.
(I know you’ve already read those, so I’ll have to do some more homework. Leviathan does a pretty good job weaving the story elements together and not info-overloading. I’d probably give that a few 4’s.)
The man is Gerard Butler. In addition to having a post-appropriate last name, he shares my birthday. 🙂
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Thanks. Name of the Wind is excellent.
I need to find a Scottish accent Leviathan. (And is there a male New Zealand LotR? I’d listen to that! Maybe I’d finally get through Harry Potter, too.)
The concept of 4 is hard for me to wrap my mind around. I’m sure it exists. You and your plaguerunners’ll kick it’s trashcan.
I never knew this about writing. I found it interesting, now I can appreciate good writing that much more. I didn’t mind the details of 1 but after reading 4 it felt so much easier to retain even the subtle information and get a clearer picture through the context clues.
It’s definitely harder to do, but had the benefit of three previous attempts (and two discarded ones) by the time I posted that one.
Thanks for the feedback too, Diana.