Providing the right information at just the right time is an essential part of crafting a good story. You want to make sure not to give away to much, to create tension and suspense, and provide a payoff for your reader among many other things. But in order to do all of these things well, one element to keep in mind is the idea of when, how, and how often you provide information that your reader needs to know.
For my current revision process, this is something that has been on my mind. I moved a scene up to make sure the reader has enough information to keep him interested. I studied my order of scenes to make sure each scene laid the foundations for the ones to come. But because my first revision mandated that I delete so many of my initial pages that essentially served as backstory rather than action, in earlier revisions, I really tried to analyze where information was introduced to make sure that the reader knew just enough of what she needed to know, when she needed to know it, so that she would remain engaged and wanting to move forward with the story.
As the story then progresses, however, it is equally important to make sure that while you provide the necessary information for your story, you also are not repeating the same information again and again. Of course, you want to make sure to give your reader all the necessary clues and reminders so that the story remains understandable and fluid, but repeating information can also become redundant. Even though certain characters might not know what your reader might already know, it is important to be aware that to simply restate the information for the sake of an unknowing character can negatively affect the reader's experience of your novel — because they already know.
This was something that my mentor brought to my attention for my current revision. Because my protagonist is keeping a secret from many people, as he begins to reveal the truth, I need to be continually conscious of both the way in which he does it —meaning word choice and the analogies he uses — as well as how much information is revealed, and potentially repeated, each time. The more I thought about this, the more I realized he was right. Of course while I was writing I thought it was important to make sure my protagonist explained things to the important people in his life. But with the reader standing in a place of dramatic irony, these conversations or revelations need to be abridged, or perhaps portrayed through indirect dialogue rather than a repetition of what has already been said.
Essentially, what I am saying is this: You don't want to sacrifice your reader for the good of a character. The reader is the one who must stay engaged. She is the one you want to make turn the page, and she is the one who you don't want to bore with your over description or constant reminders of what she already knows.
Much like my last post about keeping a reader emotionally engaged, you also want to respect the reader's intelligence and ability to make connections and remember what has already occurred. Sometimes, as the writer, it is hard to see it from the reader's perspective or as someone reading it with fresh eyes. We already know the whole story. But in this part of the revision stage, it is important to really look at your manuscript as if you'd never seen it before. However hard that may be, it is important to constructing the reading experience you want your audience to have.
But being aware of what's already been said will only serve to make your novel stronger. You want your manuscript to be as interesting as possible. And information that someone already knows doesn't have have the same appeal as the new information that can be found on the next page. One of the most important things for us authors is to keep your reader reading. And if taking out a repeated section of dialogue, or extracting information that's already been established will do that, then by all means, take it out!
Disclosing information in the right places can be like a balancing act — making sure there is just enough over here to balance a lack of something over there. But it will all be worth it in the end. When you're reader keeps turning the page, and there is no boredom to be found, then the tinkering and the revising will all be worth it. So ask someone to read your work. Or pretend you're a first time reader and see what you find. I can guarantee your novel will be better for it!
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