February 15, 2021
How to Less Is More in Fiction
Notice how the title of this post is an example in itself. I didn’t say “How to Do ‘Less Is More’ in Fiction”, or anything like that. Yet still, you figured it out. The meaning was conveyed.
Of course, this blog post is nonfiction, which makes it about facts. Fiction is about affect, which makes “less is more” even more crucial.
Why?
But because learning how to “less is more” in fiction allows you precisely to strip any excess preoccupation with facts and focus on conveying this affect.
I have partly talked about this before, mostly in my posts on narrative exposition and over-explaining, so feel free to take a look at those two posts as well. You’d also learn a lot reading about the lessons from my poem shuffler program.
In this post, we’ll instead focus more on, well, how to less is more in fiction. In other words, I’ll show you some practical tips on how to make sure you strategically withhold some truths from your readers.
The Importance of Less Is More in Fiction
Before we see how to do less is more in fiction, we should first see why such a strategy is important when writing fiction.
Consider the following two scenes:
Example 1
The man chooses the end of the subway car, as he often does when it’s empty. He places the books on the last seat in the corner, the backpack over them – they’re not as well camouflaged as he thought – then he sits on the adjacent seat. The doors close, there is a short bubble in space-time, then the dimly lit station is left behind. Home. Cup of tea. Maybe some discreet music in the background.
Example 2
The man chooses the end of the subway car, as he often does when it’s empty, because he doesn’t like to be close to people. He places the books on the last seat in the corner, the backpack over them, in an attempt to hide them from others, as he feels self-conscious about carrying books. But they’re not as well camouflaged as he thought, which makes him nervous. Then he sits on the adjacent seat. The doors close, there is a short bubble in space-time, then the dimly lit station is left behind as the subway begins to move. He’s thinking of going home, having a cup of tea, and maybe playing some discreet music in the background.
This scene is from my novel Illiterary Fiction. The actual scene from the novel is example 1. I modified example 2 for the purposes of this little exercise.
I expect almost everyone to prefer the first example, thinking it’s more direct, more to-the-point, ultimately conveying more emotions and states of mind – affect, in other words.
The Practicalities of Less Is More in Fiction
So, how can we less is more in fiction?
I’ll show you a quick list, just so that you have something graspable to go by, and then I’ll open up the topic in more detail.
- No, the reader doesn’t need to know everything.
- Neither do they need to know things the moment they happen.
- Nobody cares about a 3-page description of a brick wall.
- Don’t be preoccupied with rules – this goes double for strict grammar or syntax.
- Affect is everything in fiction.
So, let’s see these in more detail…
Show, Don’t Tell? How about, neither Show nor Tell!
The reader doesn’t need to know everything that’s going on. Most authors – beginners and advanced alike, I’m afraid to say – are often preoccupied with making sure the reader “gets it”.
This is particularly the case with genre fiction – such as crime, fantasy, or romance. Would you like to try to guess why that might be? Here’s the answerGenre fiction is more about plot than characters or concepts (it’s a mistake if you ask me, but that’s a story for another day). As a result, genre fiction writers often create too complex plots, trying to be original. And, they fear, these convoluted plots will not be understood by their readers unless all details are provided..
Still, any author can fall into the trap of making sure the reader “gets it”. The things is, literature relies on imagination to operate; the audience’s imagination. Meaning is not the author’s prerogative, and as a result, successful fiction must leave room for this imagination to squeeze itself.
Don’t Forget Speed and Timing
In other words, for a successful less is more in your fiction, don’t forget the narrative pace. Audiences don’t need to know everything the moment a character does.
Compare this (imaginary) example:
John opened the door. His eyes opened wide, reflecting a faint glimmer of yellow light, but then he quickly shut the door, turned around and hurriedly walked away, his lips quivering
You, as an author, know what John saw. John knows what he saw. Why on earth would the reader need to know now? Imagine how much more diluted the affect of this scene would’ve been if the excerpt was like this:
John opened the door. His eyes opened wide, reflecting a faint glimmer of yellow light, coming from the fireplace burning in the corner of the empty room. Then he quickly shut the door, turned around and hurriedly walked away, his lips quivering
And while we’re at narrative pace, please, don’t be one of those authors who write a 3-page description of a brick wall. I used to be when I was young(er) and stupid(er), but thankfully I learned the lesson since.
There Is only One Rule: Affect Is Everything
That’s the only rule in writing fiction. Forget about verb tenses, grammar, syntax, and everything else. If there is a reason – one based on affect – to break the rules, then break them.
Overall, the key concept is affect: It must come first. If a description or a character, a side-story or an incident, are not there to increase the affective power of the novel, then they have no business being there at all.
And if you can achieve higher affective power by omitting parts of these elements, then do it.
Compare these two (again, imaginary) examples:
John looked at the man; he appeared weak, his eyes seemed tired, with a million thoughts probably passing behind them. Could he have said something, John thought, anything to make the poor soul feel better? That would have been impossible to know, but perhaps he could try anyway.
John looked at the man; weak, eyes tired, drowning in thoughts. Say something, make him feel better, he thought. What’s the point. Or maybe there is. Try anyway.
The former example is, strictly speaking, more coherent and ordered in grammatical terms, but the latter is much better in affective terms. It underlines not only the developing nature of John’s thoughts – in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way – but also the hesitation involved in the scene.
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From real life: how to spot an editor you don’t want to work with. If you get back a sample of your work, ‘edited,’ and the comment is that the editor doesn’t understand why you left out some words (clearly implied by, say, parallel structure), you know all your battles will be uphill AND you will be paying for it.
I passed.
Sending a prospective editor your sample with the unnecessary explanations and narrator intrusions should expose the editor’s biases nicely.
Yeah, that’s certainly a Litmus test for editors!
I believe the example was something like:
‘The wind shook the house like a terrier a rat.’
The editor wanted a ‘complete sentence’: ‘…like a terrier shakes a rat.’ I was happy, in context, with the former. We parted ways.
This blog reminded me of a priceless quote from one of Richard Bach’s novels (I forgot which):
“Never underestimate the power of the deleted word”
I have been trrying to keep it in mind ever since I started writing fiction (not always successfully) 😉
Indeed! As I’ve said before, not showing something in fiction is a bit like empty space in photography: it makes the subject all the more powerful. You can actually notice that in the photo accompanying the post.