This is one of the hardest, nubbiest challenges of writing a good novel.
You know your world backwards and forwards. You know what makes your characters tick. You can picture what’s happening. You know what you’re trying to say.
But unless these elements actually make it onto the page, your reader is left in the dark.
It’s really, really hard to put yourself in the shoes of one of your readers and accurately assess what you have and haven’t told them.
Here are some tips for making sure you have what you need on the page:
Err on the side of clarity
I was one of the less-promising students in my creative writing classes in college and I seriously doubt any of my teachers thought I would be someone who went on to be a published author. Among the many problems with my writing was one big flaw: I expected too much of my readers.
After receiving feedback that it was too difficult to follow one of my stories, I still remember the look of frustration on my creative writing teacher’s face when I insisted, “It’s all there on the page!”
Sure. Maybe. The problem was that it was way too difficult to piece everything together.
Don’t make your reader go digging for clues for the basics of what’s happening. Try not to beat your reader over the head with obviousness, but remember this: you’re probably not being as clear as you think you are.
This goes doubly for a character’s motivation and what’s at stake. You can’t possibly be too clear about these elements.
Always establish the physical setting
This is one of the easy ones and yet so many writers neglect it: The reader has no idea where they are unless you tell them.
Always set the scene. You don’t need pages and pages of paid-by-the-word 19th Century style description, but you should at least give the reader enough information so they can picture their surroundings.
Imagine someone you know reading your novel
One of my favorite techniques for self-editing is to take a pass reading your novel while imagining someone close to you reading it.
Ideally this is someone you know well and who would be one of the target readers of your novel. Take a pass reading a scene trying to imaging how they would react.
Chances are you’ll spot things that are unclear as you look at your novel through someone else’s eyes.
Choose your mysteries wisely
It’s fun to try to unravel a mystery. It’s not fun to wander around in the darkness trying to figure out where in the heck you are.
What are those voices? Who’s talking? Where am I? What’s happening?
Not fun.
Don’t be vague for the sake of being vague. Choose your mysteries judiciously.
Remember: You’re telling a story.
Do you have any tricks for making sure you have what you need on the page? Take to the comments!
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Art: Marktszene bei Mondschein by Pieter Geerard Sjamaar
I have followed and read all of your posts for a couple of years now. Just realized that I rarely comment, and let you know how valuable I find these pieces. I have passed several on to my writing group, and save them all in a separate folder, to re-read as I edit my wip. Thank you so much for taking the time and energy to help those of us who are still working on this; it’s much appreciated!
Thank you for de-lurking and for sharing!
Many years ago, I received two great comments from readers of my first novel about what should be on the page visually and emotionally.
“It may be in your head, but it’s not on the page.”
“Who p*ssed in his cereal this morning?”
I found — for one of your final edits — pick a random chapter and read it…you see it in a different light.
I like that idea!
Counterpoint: One reason The Lord of the Rings is so great is that Tolkien knew far more about Middle Earth than made it onto the page. He had, after all, spent years building this world. The result was depth that his imitators can only wish for.
Right but… if it’s not on the page does the reader know it?
The reader certainly could tell it was there, So when, for example, Aragorn says of Gandalf that “He is surer of finding the way home in a blind night than the cats of Queen Berúthiel” we are confident that Tolkien knew a real story behind it, and that gosh darn we would love to hear it! With a lesser writer it would be assumed, almost certainly correctly, as BS tossed out to create the illusion of deep world building.
This can be compared with nonfiction. Consider a biographer. He might put years into researching his subject, resulting in extensive and detailed notes. Those notes should not all make it into the final book, lest it become a list of trivia, but they should inform the final book. Books where the author breaks this rule turn out one of two ways. If he did indeed have extensive and detailed notes, the book is an overlong slog to wade through. If his research was so slight that everything made it into the book without making it overlong, his research was shallow and he is unlikely to have any interesting insights into his subject.
The Lord of the Rings is an unusual case, but it illustrates the limitations of the general rule.
Right but… if it’s not on the page the reader doesn’t know the story.
I think you’re missing the thrust of this post in an important way (not blaming you, maybe I wasn’t clear enough). There’s *always* more the author knows about the world of the novel that doesn’t make it onto the page, whether that’s just a bit more or some Tolkien-esque entire universe. It’s good to know backstories of characters and the setting.
The problem is that because *you the author* know the story and world so well it can blind you to the extent to which you’re not actually getting enough elements of the story onto the page for the reader to make sense of it.
I agree with you that readers can sense when there’s more to the story, but when the thing they’re trying to grasp is the *actual* story, and not some aside like Queen Berúthiel, it’s insanely frustrating.