4 Excessive

This is one of my favourite comments to write on someone’s ms…because it often engenders a long conversation with authors, who often don’t realise what they’ve done. From the name, you can deduce that dialogue where one character tells another something that they both already know is called As You Know, Bob (AYKB). Writing an AYKB dialogue might be used to reveal info to the reader, but if the characters already know it, why would they mention it? Obvious information is never included in casual conversation.

Although it can appear in any kind of story, the two genres that suffer the most from AYKB are historical and speculative fiction. Historical because of all the research needed to maintain accuracy, and speculative fiction because of all the world building. Once that historical research or world building is done, authors just can’t keep it to themselves. They want readers to understand all the work they did to create the background…which should remain in the background.

It’s true that readers love to immerse themselves into a world unlike their current reality, but don’t rub their noses in it. Make everything so common and expected that they feel as if they are actually there. When conversations exist only to leak info to the readers, it feels fake and throws the reader out of the story.

Research

Some research is needed to ensure accurate historical facts or the plausibility of your world, but to do it right, you have to spend hours collecting or creating the material and gathering it together into a Story Bible. You need that tome, but the readers want a book with excitement and action…with people doing things. After so much investigation or construction, it might feel wasted not to share it all with your readers…even if they don’t care. Don’t let the research drive the story—if it doesn’t propel, toss it. You may have spent a lot of time exploring a limited topic…just to perfect a single sentence or even a single word…but only the info the reader needs should remain.

We know readers might need some details to understand your book, but you can’t interrupt the action to dump it on them…find another way that seems ordinary and natural. Sticking those details into dialogue won’t sound realistic, and the readers will know it—flagging you as a newbie. Forcing your characters to talk about something common (to them) would be similar to you explaining to your brother how flipping a light switch lets electricity flow through wires to the bulb and illuminate the room. Either you both already know, or you don’t care…as long as it works. Same in your story: it may not be necessary for the reader to understand…either it works or it doesn’t, but how is irrelevant.

In fact, having characters talk about things that are ordinary in their world tends to make those things stand out…in other words not ordinary…the opposite of what you had in mind. By not discussing something, the characters and the readers will assume it is normal and routine. Again, try to Resist the Urge to Explain…anything.

Examples

Here are a few examples (some of which we’ve seen in mss we’ve edited!). We’ll discuss why they are so bad and how they could be fixed.

• “Amy, I heard your husband, Brian, got a new job.”

Unless Amy has more than one husband, including both the title and the name is redundant. So how do you let the reader know that Amy’s husband is named Brian? Turn it around in dialogue:

• “Amy, I heard your husband got a new job.”
  Amy nodded. “Yes, Brian finally got the security approval.”

Takes care of the AYKB and makes an opportunity to let slip more info.

This next one is totally made up, but it demonstrates a point.

• The pilot came over the PA just as the plane was about to take off.
  “Just a reminder that the partial vacuum created by the accelerated air over the wings will lift us into the air as we fly.”

You probably can’t imagine that anyone would really say that, but just check out the next one.

• The captain came over the ship-wide comm and announced,
  “All staff, take your duty positions as we are about to breach space through an Einstein-Rosen bridge, not actually travelling faster than light, just covering a huge distance in a short time through a distortion in space-time.”

This is pretty much the same as the one above, just in a different story, but how many times have you heard something just like it in a SciFi book?

How to Fix the Problem

The best way I know to fix this problem is to introduce a character that doesn’t know the detail. Either he doesn’t know that one detail, or he’s just plain stupid and doesn’t know anything. We call these characters a foil—just don’t make him too stupid. A good example of a foil is Robin, Batman’s sidekick. Whenever Batman does something amazing, Robin says, “Wow, Batman, that was neat. Why’d you do it?” When Batman answers, his motivation is revealed to both Robin and the reader. If Batman is always doing amazing things it can get excessive, so either do it rarely, or make it something comical that the reader will come to expect. (Think about it…why else does Robin exist?)

An alternative to a foil or sidekick is a newbie or an outsider. Bring someone new into your world, and they will need explanations that the reader needs to hear. You might have a native tell the explorer that if he even offers a handshake, he might get his hand chopped off…because no one in this village likes to be touched. That would be a good piece of world building that needs to be revealed…but only when a character needs to hear it.

When you think you’ve got it fixed, run it by your Critique Group or beta readers. If they don’t complain about the revelation, then it might pass the AYKB test. You can also read your text aloud…or even have the dialogue read through as if it were a play. Highlight each character’s lines in different colours, gather a few friends, sit around a table, and have them each read a part. Watch to see that they don’t break out into laughter or snigger as they read (unless your work is intended to be humorous!).

Exceptions

Many of us have friends who sound as if they were walking encyclopaedias. They stand around rattling on about things that everyone already knows…or doesn’t care about. If you have a character like that, then you may let him pontificate to his heart’s delight. Just paste in the Wikipedia text, add quotes, and a dialogue tag.

• Eric sat up and said, “Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal investigations, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal procedure.”
  Everyone else just rolled their eyes and laughed.

With this technique, you can create a character who just randomly spouts out non-sequiturs, data no one needs, facts that no one wants. I’m certain you all know someone like that.

Killing Reviews

Huge blocks of excessive exposition that aren’t part of the story, can lead to readers and reviewers stopping before they get done reading your book. One of the last things you want to see in a review is “Did not finish”.

Forcing readers to put up with extraneous side discussions tempts fate…and that’s a temptation you don’t want to risk.

Well, the year is coming to an end, so this will be the last Terms posting and will have to include all the words and phrases we have left over. This is the third posting in this category, so you might want to go back and read Writing and Editing Terms #1 or Writing and Editing Terms #2. If your interest lies more in getting ink on paper, then you’ll want to read Printing Terms. If you prefer to chat about how language works, then consider Grammar Terms. This time we’ll begin with some features that you may want to include in your story, then go over a few elements that are good to consider, and yet again, we’ll be finishing up with a few avoidances.

Parts of a story

• Prologue—Introductory section that sets up the story, usually set in a time well before the story itself (also may be an extract from part way through the story, such as just before the climax)
• Epilogue—Closing section of story, similar to a Prologue but ties up story threads and reveals characters’ lives after the story
• Black Moment—Third point in plot (also known as Darkest Point), MC has been defeated, all is lost
• Foreshadow—Planting hints early in the story suggesting events to occur later (see also Red Herrings)
• Flashback—Short narration revealing some information to the reader that took place in the story’s past
• Backstory—Information about characters or world, known to author and occasionally included in story
• Setting—Time, place, and situation of story to establish context (be certain to reveal early enough to avoid assumptions that might turn out to be wrong later)

Details in the Story

• Red Herring—False clue to mislead reader, must be logical and fit in the flow but allow the reader to mis-anticipate later action
• Chekhov’s Gun—Dramatic principle requiring details to be relevant, per Anton Chekhov, if a gun is mentioned over the mantelpiece in scene one, it must be fired by scene three or it shouldn’t have been mentioned at all
• Telling Detail—Information revealed that may seem minor at the time but may lead to understanding the characters better
• MacGuffin—Plot device that moves the story along without being relevant in and of itself
• Tension—Significant, dramatic elements of the plot that move the story along (as opposed to a MacGuffin)
• Stakes—Potential rewards or consequences of MC’s actions, resulting from success or failure of plan
• Description—Giving the reader an idea of the surroundings or characters with vivid sensory details

Items to Avoid

• Shaggy Dog Story—Long winded story full of irrelevant details that ends with a whimper instead of a bang, often with a pun (see Roger)
• Author Intrusion—Comments in narration not in the POV of any character, author telling us what we should think about the situation or the characters
• Product Placement—Mentioning details that don’t add to the story (unless you’ve got them as a supporter!)
• Pleonasm—Use of extraneous words not necessary for meaning, sometimes a style issue

Well, that seems to wrap up Terms postings for this year. We’ll see about addressing some of these terms next year…in more detail. Look for the postings that include the terms you’re most interested in.