Your Scenes Probably Start Too Early and End Too Late

Most new authors dread confusing their readers, and they should. But too often, they rush to the opposite extreme of overexplaining.

The main character wakes up, showers, gets dressed, eats breakfast, drives across town, parks, walks into the office, greets the receptionist, rides the elevator, and finally enters the conference room where the story really starts.

Because that’s where his boss gives him the impossible assignment. Or tells him he’s fired.

Now, consider which events in that sequence the reader actually picked up the book for.

Starting the book before the story starts is a problem that plagues many novel drafts. The author has imagined a sequence of events and dutifully records them in chronological order.

Is the sequence logical? Yes.

Is it also boring? Hell yes it is.

In early, out late is yet another problem that readers, including beta readers, frequently misdiagnose as slow pacing. It’s a problem I’ve gotten quite good at spotting and fixing in the works of authors who engage my professional editing services.

Here’s a hint: The solution isn’t to streamline the sentence-level prose so Sarah no longer “walks slowly across the crowded parking lot toward her car” and instead “crosses the parking lot.”

Read the full post on Substack.

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