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Have You Written Too
Much of a Good Thing?
By Veronica Scott
I’ve been judging romance
author contests again this year, for unpublished manuscripts, and I have a few
thoughts based on common issues I’m seeing.
NOTE: I won’t discuss any specific entries I’ve seen in the
contests and any examples I give here will be hypothetical, invented by me
based on exposure to a ton of manuscripts, not
from actual contest entries.
A theme this year in what I consider to be problems is the
issue of the author doing too much.
What I mean by this falls into several buckets. First, many
authors including myself do a lot of research. Even for our scifi romances set
on other planets, we may research all kinds of topics from viruses to rare
birds to extreme environments. The author ends up with a lot of arcane
information that actually won’t ever appear in the plot but which undergirds
the reality of the world and is intended to help the reader feel the
authenticity. So far so good. Where it becomes a problem is when the author
can’t help themselves and has a character or two spend inordinate amounts of
time explaining why the xyzfisher birds of Planet Marvelous 6 have the unusual nesting
habits they do and what their favorite plants are, which leads to a discussion
of exobotany as well, for example. If the information doesn’t advance the
story, trim it out (don’t delete it – word building is important – but don’t
overwhelm us either)! If your characters are going to hide out in an xyzfisher
nest, then ok, maybe you can provide a bit more relevant detail for us.
You know how a backstory infodump is a bad thing and stops
the book’s momentum dead? Well so does a too detailed, shiny research-inspired
infodump.
A variation on this is the inclusion of a nice scene that’s
really kind of pointless on the overall plot when you stand back from the book,
but which allows the author to showcase a whole bunch of research. I wish I
could share the last two examples of this that I saw but alas, I promised no
real examples. The scenes were well written, polished gems and carried the
reader along…for a while, until I said, wait a minute, why the heck am I so
deep into the step-by-step technique for creating gilded ceramic seashells
(made up example) when all that’s really needed is a one or two sentence
mention that the hero has a couple on the shelf in his spaceship’s control
chamber??? If these gilded knickknacks are actually going to be a plot point –
the heroine throws them at him in a fit of pique or ransoms him from evil
aliens using them or something – then GREAT, but again, no need for a long
drawn out scene starting with the gathering of the right river sand with the
appropriate silica content…
If you’ve developed
500 years of history for your complicated fantasy or scifi world and drawn the
maps and traced the genealogy, okayyyy…but please don’t start the book with
that. Unless you’re Tolkien or Asimov, I guess. Save it for a guest blog post,
a ‘deleted extra’ for the newsletter or an author’s note on your blog…anywhere
but that precious real estate of the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon, where
some readers are going to sample the book, yawn over the dry and
meaningless-to-them-at-this-stage history lesson and go away without one
clicking because they never got a taste of the real story your blurb promised. The odds are good they won’t be
back for your next book either.
The second place an author can do too much of a good thing
is with the extra touches. Introducing us to every resident of the colony and
their phobias, pets and backstories as the heroine strolls from the spaceport
to the bazaar in the first chapter, for example. Who does she actually need to
interact with, that we need to remember? Make those few people ‘real’ for the
reader with the names and a relevant detail or two.
The times I’ve seen
this kind of thing done recently (in more than one unpubbed manuscript, of
varying genres) I kid you not – there were pages
of this type of encounter and the mind boggled. Well, this reader’s mind
boggled anyway. As with everything, your mileage may vary.
The third category of too much of a good thing is a scene
that you the author are loving
writing and have so many more cool, nifty ideas to add into that one scene that
you just keep going and going and going…um, what was the plot of the book
itself again? Why have we now spent fifty pages in Esmeranne’s back yard
fighting off an endless horde of alien mercenaries, each with his/her/its
moment in the twin suns, complete with unique weapon and method of fighting?
Unless you’re going to be selling action figures online, maybe trim back to two
or three key bad guys, let her beat them or they capture her after a nicely
choreographed fight scene and let’s move along.
Have I ever done any of the above? Oh undoubtedly! I
especially have to resist being a walking treasure trove of ancient Egyptian
lore and not inserting ALL of it into my books because it is so freaking COOL
and I know you’d love to know all of it too. Wouldn’t you? (Peers hopefully
into the computer screen waiting for permission to start the data dump…) Okay,
maybe not then.
I do realize that there are readers who relish more in depth
world building and sharing of infinite details than I personally do. What I try
to caution against in my contest feedback is getting carried away with the
sheer joy of having created all these nifty things/names/words/scenes and
allowing them to overwhelm your book’s momentum, especially in the crucial
first few chapters. The reader is there for the story you promised in the
blurb, with the main characters
facing difficult times and decisions, with high stakes.
Don’t give in to the temptation to add too much other fun
stuff and cause the actual story (and the hero and heroine) to go drifting away
from the reader’s attention.
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Veronica Scott is a USA Today Best Selling Author, whose
most recent book is JADRIAN: A Badari
Warriors SciFi Romance, with genetically engineered warriors of the future and
the human women who love them…
“SciFi Encounters” columnist for the USA Today Happy Ever
After blog, Veronica Scott grew
up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved
ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in
everything. When she ran out of books to read, she started writing her own
stories.
Seven time winner of the SFR Galaxy Award, as well as a
National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award, Veronica is also the proud
recipient of a NASA Exceptional Service Medal relating to her former day job,
not her romances!
She read the part of
Star Trek Crew Member in the audiobook production of Harlan Ellison’s “The City
On the Edge of Forever.”
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vscotttheauthor
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JADRIAN Blurb and Buy
Links:
Taura Dancer has been pushed to her limits by alien
torturers known as the Khagrish and is ready to die when suddenly the lab where
she’s held as a prisoner is taken down by an armed force of soldiers.
The man who rescues her from a burning cell block is Jadrian
of the Badari, a genetically engineered alien warrior with as many reasons to
hate the Khagrish as Taura has. This set of shared past experiences and the
circumstances of her rescue create an unusual bond between them.
Safe in the hidden base where Jadrian and his pack take her,
Taura struggles to regain her lost memories and overcome constant flashbacks
during which she lashes out at all who come near. Only Jadrian can recall her
from the abyss of her visions and hallucinations.
As the war against the Khagrish continues, it becomes increasingly
critical to find out who she really is and how she can help in the fight. Until
she can control her terrors and trust her own impulses, Taura’s too afraid to
pursue the promise of happiness a life with Jadrian as her mate might offer.
When he’s captured by the dreaded enemy, will she step
forward to help save him, or will she remain a prisoner of her past?
Excellent post, Veronica. Something all of us need to remind ourselves. I'm guilty of this, too--until my critique partner or beta reader gives me a heads up.
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