posted
I've been working on a story for about 2 years now. Nothing has really been written because it's not the typical format for writing. (Partially, this is because I don't consider myself to be a very talented writer, yet I do think that I am a fairly decent storyteller.) At any rate, I'll be attempting a webcomic. I've got the start and I've got the general outline as well as where I want the story to end. I was surprised to find that I didn't follow the general mistake that most beginning writers make as listed in UOWC "Critique" in that I introduce the character through a situation he faces before having any of the planned "drama." However, in searching through the writing class, I did not find one of my biggest failings among the subjects being described by my wife as "I put too much into the story," meaning, I've got background and want to include the how's and why's of what transpires between and during the different chapters of the character's life. My wife says that the level of detail I'm going into will cause disinterest on the part of my readers because I go into too much detail. My problem is that I can see her point but I can't see where too much detail will weigh down my story unnecessarily.
A good comparison would be between Alvin's doodlebug and what it can do as relates to the story. What I see as explanations for what happens, my wife says should be accepted as is. Likewise, the view Alvin takes, as a child, to the infection in his bone show not only the level of understand he had of anatomy but it also set the stage for future abilities and developments.
Posts: 4 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Here's the attitude change you need: The reader doesn't need to know everything YOU know. Instead, you need to make sure you know and tell everything the reader DOES need to know in order to understand what's happening and why.
At the same time, you need to know FAR more than you actually put into the story. Why? Because without realizing it, your knowledge will be a constant guide to you in things you don't say, in things you don't have happen; or with characters referring to events or places that are never touched on in the actual story, etc. This will give the reader the illusion that the story takes place in a much wider world.
Tolkien crossed the line now and then - did we need the full text of ALL the poems and songs? - but he was superb at giving us the feeling of being in a vast ocean of a world with only a periscope letting us see a bit of the surface.
Now ... what your wife is REALLY saying is not "You keep telling too much." What she REALLY meant to say was, "At this particular moment in the story, I became impatient with this information because I didn't see what it had to do with the aspects of the story I was actually interested in." In other words, the problem may not be "too much," the problem may simply be "too soon" or "wrong point of view."
If you are telling the story from a particular character's point of view, and THAT CHARACTER would not think the information was relevant, then it will really bother a reader to be told that information. What you tell us is meant to reflect what is known to and thought about by the point of view character. Maybe you need to save some of that info to be told about when it is actually relevant to somebody.
And maybe you don't want to write it down in the book at all, but simply keep it as knowledge in your own head, which will shape your novel and make it richer for the reader without them - or you - ever having it explicitly discussed.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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