How to Focus a Novel: 3 Key Things

 

 

Ever take a look at your story and notice it's wandering here, there, over the river, through the woods, and all the way to grandmother's house?

 

Whether you are brainstorming, writing, or revising, it can be difficult to discern what belongs in your story and what belongs on the cutting floor--what is a good, appropriate idea, and what is a less-than-good, not-quite-appropriate idea.

 

Unless you know about the holy trinity of writing. 

 

What is the holy trinity of writing, you ask?

Well, nothing . . . 

EXCEPT THE THREE KEY ELEMENTS THAT MAKE A STORY EXCELLENT.

(Spoiler: I'm the only one who calls them "the holy trinity of writing," so don't use that term elsewhere unless you want strange looks (which, let's be honest, sometimes makes life more exciting 😉).)

With these three elements, you should--theoretically--be able to evaluate what content belongs in your manuscript and what belongs in the recycle bin (oof, so harsh). 

 

Have I always thought of these three elements as the holy trinity of writing? 

Definitely not.

In fact, years ago, I would have scratched my head at one of them.

But as I've grown and gained experience, I have found this fact to be largely true:

Everything* in the story must connect back into one of these three components.

 

*Well, "everything"--you know how writing "rules" are.

 

Character (arc)

Plot (cause and effect events that make up "what happens")

Theme (what character arc + plot is teaching us about life)

 

99% of what you write should be touching and progressing one of these things, and often, all three. 

Really? 

 

Really.

When you have and know all three components of your story, you are able to brainstorm better or evaluate better. 

 

You are less likely to wander down roads that lead to hundreds of pages needing to be cut.

Knowing each of these three things will help you refine everything you write. The good news is, you don't have to know everything about each of these topics. (Well, at least not until the end, perhaps (though some writers may even argue against that).)

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Making Your Manuscript Reader-friendly

Have you ever used a computer program that wasn't user-friendly? It's kind of the worst. I remember a particular one that me and my sibling spent over an hour trying to figure out how to use. It was not user-friendly. At all.

Unfortunately, the same thing can happen when writing a novel.

I've heard these wise words in the industry, but I'm not sure on their source.

Writing is telling yourself the story. Editing is telling the reader the story.

While I think there are some exceptions (like with all maxims) (sometimes I'm still telling myself the story when editing), I think this thought process holds a lot of truth.

As writers, for the first part of the process, we are trying to figure out the story, and we are telling it to ourselves. We want to put down what's in our heads.

But literature is a collaboration. It's not just about what the writer writes. It's also about the meanings, experiences, and conclusions the reader has. Together, through the text, we create the story.

(Okay, maybe some writers, who only write for themselves, don't need to worry about that. But most of us do.)

Just as programs largely need to be user-friendly to be successful, so do stories.

If the reader can't understand, appreciate, or enjoy the story, the collaboration part of the narrative is failing.

But this is easier said than done, and sometimes tricky to spot and fix.

So here are some things to consider.

(Also, I typically wouldn't recommend you stress about this too early in the book-writing process. If you are still "telling the story to yourself" and this stresses you out, leave it for a later edit.)

The Reader Doesn't Need to Know as Much as the Writer

During the writing process, we have to brainstorm and figure out a lot of things that the reader neither needs to know nor cares about.

We may come up with elaborate, important backstories for characters that may never be published, in order to understand the person, their motives, and what kind of subtext they bring to their scenes. We may spend hours researching information to find out if a certain situation and outcome is plausible, and we might write why in the draft. We might throw up an info-dump right in the middle of a chapter when we are explaining the story to ourselves. We might include flashbacks that feel vital, but in the grand scheme of things, can actually be axed.

Almost always, we probably love our characters, world, and plot more than the readers do. (I said "almost.") And often if we include everything we know about them and the world and the story, it'll be boring. Have you guys read Lord of the Rings? Wonderful story. How many of you read the entire prologue the first time? Probably almost no one. Why? Because it's a 15-page info-dump explaining Hobbits to the audience. The average reader doesn't care about all that. They might care about it after they are familiar with the story, but that's not the first thing they want to read.

When inviting the audience into our fictive world to meet our characters, often less is more. We want them to want more information--which means not flooding them with unnecessary details. So cut what they don't need to know.

The Reader Needs to Know More than The Writer

On the flip side, in a strange way, the reader needs to know more than the writer. Maybe I write a scene where the characters' motivations are clear as day to me, the writer, because of all of the foreshadowing and subtext I've put in, so I feel like I don't need to explain it in the text itself. I don't need to "know" that information by writing it down.

But it's not clear to the reader. Why did so-and-so do such and such? How did Jane know that Matthew was the killer?

To be honest, most people who haven't studied literature at a college level haven't been taught how to read carefully, and how to accurately read into a text. That's fine. But that means that you might need to provide more information and guidance than you thought you needed when telling the story to yourself.

Other times, the readers may have different, inaccurate (but merited) interpretations of what's happening, so they need more information to come to the right conclusion. For example, I once worked on a story where I was convinced that one of the antagonistic characters was a werewolf. Baffled, the writer asked me why. After pointing out all the evidence, he realized he needed to change some of the story so that it wasn't misleading. (In some stories, it would have been fine to be ambiguous, but not in this one.) This is often where beta-readers are helpful.

Reader: But why is the Dark Lord doing that?

Writer: BECAUSE HE'S THE DARK LORD!!!11

Reader: ????

So add more information when the reader needs it. What's obvious to you, is not always obvious to them.

FOCUS the Story

I'm going to be a bad person and tell you guys right now that I hate the movie Secret Life of Pets. Why? Because there is no focus! Or at least, very little. It's just things happening, that sort of follow the Freytag Pyramid, but nothing is fully weaved in or connected or truly realized. Unlike most blockbuster children movies, it lacks focus. (BTW, just because it lacks focus doesn't mean you aren't allowed to like it. I don't like it, because of that, but Heaven knows I love and forgive a lot of other stories that are lacking).

During the writing process, you were probably figuring out the story. You may not quite know how to focus the story--or what the focus even is. Maybe you had a bunch of good ideas and cool subplots and even character arcs and fun scenes . . . but there is just too much or it doesn't seem to fit together cohesively.

Readers prefer focus and cohesion. Sure, there are some rare stories that can break this, but very few. If the story lacks focus, the audience may be wondering: What the heck is this book about? Which parts are important? What do I need to remember for later? Where is this going?

There are two (as far as I know) ways to better focus the story.

1. Focus on the main plot lines

In most successful stories, there is an inner journey and an outer journey for the protagonist. Those are the most important story lines, usually. Other than that, there may be a tertiary plot line--often a relationship, but it could be something else. In any case, figure out the main plot lines of your story. If something doesn't fit into one of those, like say that whole chapter you have about your protagonist hanging out at Uncle Mike's for the summer, then it may need to be cut.

2. Focus on the theme topic

A lot of stories that seem to have a lot of characters, events happening, and sometimes seemingly unrelated events, actually have focus because they focus on the theme topic. In Hamilton, almost every "character story" explored relates back to the theme topic of legacy: Hamilton, Burr, Eliza, Angelica, Washington, Lafayette, Hercules--and provides different manifestations and views of it. (Les Mis does the exact same thing, with the theme topics of mercy and justice.)

The theme statement is the takeaway value, the point of the story. The theme topic is the subject we are exploring. So, for Les Mis, the theme statement is that "mercy is more powerful than justice." But the topics are mercy and justice themselves.

(Secret Life of Pets has no clear theme, which is why I didn't like it. Compare it to Finding Dory, Wreck-it Ralph, Frozen, or Moana, and it's clear that Disney understands how theme focuses story.)

Which parts of your manuscript connect to the theme topic? The theme topic should be explored, tested, questioned through the course of the story. You may need to cut or repurpose parts that don't relate to the theme.

Bring clarity to the story by strengthening focus.

The Reader has Less Patience than the Author

For the reader, an ideal story keeps them looking forward; it keeps them wanting to turn pages. As writers, like I said before, we tend to already be more interested in the world and characters than the audience is. We might have fun ways we want to introduce each character, great dialogue exchanges, interesting facts about the setting, and yet including all that might kill the pacing.

Remember, as writers, we are already way invested and interested in the story--we've spent so much time working on it! But the reader isn't. He or she needs to get invested quick. And when reading, they don't want to feel like they have to be patient. They just want to read and enjoy the story. The words "be patient" shouldn't even have to enter their thought process.

There is a reason they picked up your book. What did they come for? Make sure you are delivering on that. If you can't deliver on it right away, you may need to add a prologue to promise it will be there soon.

Work toward main points and significant parts (or in some cases, the most entertaining parts) and don't dilly-dally too much. (Focusing the story will help with this).

It's worth remembering that sometimes the point of the writing isn't to give an exact rendition of what is happening and what the characters are experiencing, but rather to give the notion or impression of it. If your protagonist is bored for a full week, the audience only wants a quick impression of the boredom--enough to get the point--not an accurate, full rendition of it.

Connect and Simplify Complicated Concepts

By the time you've finished telling the story to yourself, you probably have a lot of concepts going on. (Or if you are like me, may be bordering on a "kitchen sink" story.) Remember, it's easier for the audience to learn something new and/or recall what they've already learned when it's connected to something.

If you've introduced too many new ideas and concepts, you may need to connect them. It's hard to remember a bunch of random numbers. But it's easier to remember them if they connect in some way (2, 4, 8, 16).

Brandon Sanderson touches on this idea when talking about magic systems. He says instead of adding and adding and adding new things, it's usually more effective to connect, deepen, and build on what's already there. If you can connect complicated concepts, the story will be more reader-friendly.

Likewise, you may need to simplify some concepts . . . or at least the delivery of them. (Remember, the audience doesn't need to know as much as the writer.) Make it look easier than it is. I mean, it's really easy to use Netflix, but I'm sure the backend is not that simple! It's easy for me to use my computer, but if I tried to build one, I'd be clueless.

Remember what da Vinci said: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

Just because something comes across as simple doesn't necessarily mean it's not deep or complex--it's just not confusing.

And when it comes to making a manuscript reader-friendly, we usually don't want to be confusing.

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The Weight of Words

When you are writing fiction, words carry a kind of weight. They work a bit like a camera lens, guiding the audience what to view and what to focus on. What subject you choose to spend words on in the scene shapes the audience's perception of the story.

However, there are some subjects in your story that deserve a heavier weight of words than others. For example, if your story is about a young girl trying to become a professional soccer player, and you spend a whole chapter talking about an old willow tree that grew in her childhood home's backyard (which carries no symbolic or ulterior value other than it's just an old willow tree she likes), you've spent more words on the subject than it was worth. The reader may not always be able to pinpoint what is wrong, but they'll feel like the story got uninteresting. They don't care about the tree. It's not important.

More often though, this sort of thing happens on a much smaller scale in a scene. Let's say that you have a scene where your protagonist goes to a religious event, and the purpose of the scene is that she needs to get specific information or help from a religious leader. If the narrator spends three paragraphs describing what the bathroom in the church looks like, the pacing is going to drag. The bathroom doesn't merit having that many words describing it. The bathroom doesn't deserve that much focus. It's not important to the story.

The more important a subject or idea is to the scene, the more words it's worth. The moment where the protagonist gets the needed information from the religious leader, is the point of the scene, so that moment merits more words than the bathroom does. This concept relates to my post a few months ago about discerning what should happen on-page from what should happen off-page. Part of learning how to write professionally, is learning how to gauge what subject merits what amount of words.

If you use a lot of words on a subject that isn't actually that significant to the scene or overall story, the text becomes unbalanced. That subject carries more weight than it's worth, and the text is leaning in that direction, when it should be leaning in a different direction.

This sort of thing can apply to almost all parts of a story. It relates to setting description. If your character is traveling to Idaho to view the total solar eclipse, but during the viewing, you spend more words describing a stranger's shoes than you do the actual solar eclipse, it's probably a problem. The story should be focusing, leaning toward the solar eclipse, but instead, it's leaning toward a random person's shoes. It's unbalanced.

It can happen with characters. If Lavender Brown gets more words and characterization about her than Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, we have a problem. Textually, Lavender Brown is getting more weight and focus. It's unbalanced. That plot line is supposed to be about Ron.

It can happen with theme. If we spent a whole chapter describing, pondering, and creating a whole history about the old willow in the protagonist's backyard, the audience will think it's going to be significant to the story, most likely in a thematic way. But if it isn't, and it has nothing to do with the story, than it has far more words than it merits. If the theme of your story is supposed to relate to love, but the text actually spends more focus and weight and pondering on the meaning of independence, your story is leaning in the wrong direction.

And of course, it can happen with plot. If you spend more weight on a tertiary plot than you do the primary plot, guess what? Either the tertiary plot became the primary--which often doesn't work, because the subject matter isn't as important--or the story is unbalanced.

Now, there is a reason I use the word "spend." It might sound weird to some of you when I say "spend weight." But spending is often exactly how it functions. Like money, you have a finite amount of words to spend writing your story. I'm not saying you can't write a big, fat, full novel. Your book is like a purchase. There are pots you need to purchase and there are houses you may need to purchase. A house needs more money to own. Some stories are like pots. Some stories are like houses. So the amount of words your story merits depends on what kind of story you want to tell. If words were like money, you wouldn't want to spend a whole chapter on an insignificant willow tree. You just way overpaid for that willow tree. The reader doesn't want all that money put into creating an amazing willow tree. They want you to spend it elsewhere. You spent too many words, too much weight, too much focus on that tree that the reader doesn't care about.

The pacing slows. The reader gets bored. You begin losing their attention.

Perhaps no words are more valuable than the words at the very beginning of the story. You have to win over the reader's care. You have to try to get them to be invested in the story. But if you spend your first chapter's words unwisely--spending two solid paragraphs describing an insignificant rock--the reader is going to be subconsciously tempted to put the book down. You. Are. Trying. To. Win. Them. Over. Don't spend the precious weight of the story describing a random rock.

In the beginning of the narrative, because the reader hasn't been won over yet, and you haven't gotten far into the story, every possible subject in the scene carries an equal weight--or perhaps it would be better to say, no weight. This means every word you start writing, begins to shape the story's, or scene's focus.

Because the reader isn't invested in the story yet, it's very important that you don't overspend your words on any subject. Create the scene, but do it on a tight budget. Spend enough words on the subjects to create them in the reader's mind, but not so much that it becomes overwrought and uninteresting.

As the reader becomes more invested as the story progresses, they will begin to care more about stuff that is more "expensive." They'll sit through longer descriptions. They'll sit through two solid paragraphs about the concept of independence. If the willow tree is thematic, and therefore significant to the story, they may even sit through a whole chapter on it.

But that's the catch. To merit a more expensive price tag, it needs to be more significant than other subjects.

With all that said, though, in some cases, it is possible to break that rule and open a story with two fat paragraphs pondering the concept of independence, but it needs to be good, clever, and either entertain the mind or the feelings. Don't spend $100 on a cliche. If you are going to open that way, you've got to bring something new to the table, and talk about the concept of independence in a way the reader hasn't seen before.

Now back to the very beginning, where the reader isn't yet invested in the story. Subconsciously, when they begin reading your book, they're trying to decide if they care about it. So what you spend your words on is important. Luckily, depending on your genre, you should know what your reader picked up the book for. If they picked up romance, they want romance. If they picked up adventure, they want adventure. If they picked up something humorous, they want to laugh. Usually the real romantic moments and real adventure happens later in the story, which is why you need to promise the reader with hooks that if they keep reading it, they'll get to it. In a romance, this might mean in the starting scene, you spend a few words on your progatonist's loneliness. In adventure, this might mean in the opening, your character mentions his desire to find aztec treasure. This is one of the reasons so many people in the writing industry say you should start your story with your character having a goal of some kind--it often makes it easier to make promises to the reader. It's only one reason, but it's a reason.

One final point I need to make so that everyone reading this doesn't go off and way overwrite the truly significant subjects of their story. There is another well-known writing rule: less is more. Often this is true with significant subjects. Promises, teases, hooks, subtext, are bigger than what's on the page, and naturally carry more weight because of that--the "rest of the words" happen in the reader. They don't need to be overwrought. Often those things are best short and powerful. This is because carefully choosing specific words--words that mean more than what's actually on the page--carry more impact than an overwrought passage. Less is more. But that's veering into a different topic too big for this post.

Suffice it to say that insignificant subjects should not unbalance your story because you've spent more words on them than they merited. And don't shortchange the more important parts that deserve more words--more weight, more focus.

Last of all, don't forget, though, that in key moments, sometimes less is more, because what's being said is bigger than what's in the text. 

Blog Birthday Giveaway

In case you missed it last week, I'm doing a giveaway to celebrate my five years of blogging! You can enter to win a 10-page edit from me, right here! You do not to be a serious writer. Hobbyist writers are welcome to submit.

For full editing needs, you can visit my editing website, FawkesEditing.com!

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