by Anne R. Allen
Recently I’ve seen sad posts by a number of new writers who are having trouble marketing a self-published debut novel, or are discouraged by numerous rejections. Some are furious at the world for not loving their stuff.
In a lot of their work, I see the same problem. It’s usually right there in the title or on the cover (if the cover is homemade.)
The books are too cluttered. The authors are hoarding too many characters, themes and messages. It’s time for them to Marie Kondo their work.
For anybody who doesn’t pay attention to popular culture, Marie Kondo is a superstar organizing consultant and author with her own show on Netflix.
Her principles can be applied to writing as well as housekeeping. So if you’re having trouble finding a publisher or audience for your book, maybe it needs some of Marie Kondo’s advice.
Crowded Covers
Maybe the book’s cover shows a drawing of Noah’s Ark. In it are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Botticelli’s Venus, and The Beatles from the Sergeant Pepper album. Except Ringo looks like Harry Potter. And in the background is a mushroom cloud with the image of a bat in the smoke.
All the themes of the book are right there on the cover! Plus a bat, because bats are cool.
Or there’s a map of the world, with the faces of a dozen people superimposed over major cities. And a sunrise at the top. And a sunset at the bottom. Then a large gun obscuring part of the title. And two semi-naked lovers in a clinch.
You wanted everybody to know this is an international thriller with a hot love interest and lots of scary people shooting each other.
The only problem is the covers ended up looking like those collages you made from magazine clippings in second grade..
Titles that Try Too Hard
These same books tend to have titles like:
- Obscurity: The Reality of the Finite and the Hope of the Infinite on the Global Stage—A Thriller
- Love is a Dirty Old Cow, Maybe the One Who Jumped Over the Moon, or Ran Away with the Spoon—A Time Travel-Horror-Chick Lit-Mystery
- You Don’t Know Jack…or Jill, or the Pail, and it’s all Downhill from Here—A Romance in the Time of Climate Change
The authors have tried to stuff way too much information into a poor little title.
Time to Declutter That Novel!
If you’ve self-published one of these novels and only have a handful of reviews and sales, I’d suggest unpublishing and starting over. Lots of practice novels were tossed onto Amazon in the heat of the Kindle Revolution that should never have seen the light of day. At least in their present form.
Do a little mourning and then get ready to tidy up.
I do understand the urge to throw everything into your first novel. I did the “kitchen sink” thing myself. It was a saga about 4 interconnected women, a type of women’s fiction that was super popular at the time. Books like Ruth Harris’s million-selling blockbuster “Modern Women.”
But I was no Ruth Harris. I was just a beginner, and I had no idea how to tie the stories together with one story arc. I also tried to make each woman a symbol of something grand and wanted the novel to be about life, the universe, and everything.
When it got to 300,000 pages, I realized I had a problem. I was cramming way too much into one book.
Don’t Try to Write About Life, The Universe and Everything.
For one thing, it’s been done. Brilliantly. By the late, great Douglas Adams. RIP.
We need to remind ourselves there will be more novels. We don’t have to solve all the worlds’ problems in one book.
A novel needs to be about one person. With one theme. And one primary story arc. There can be lots of secondary characters and secondary arcs, but your main story has to be about one thing. When writers say they can’t write a synopsis because they have four protagonists, I know the problem isn’t the synopsis, it’s the novel. It’s trying to do too much. It needs focus. And probably some major decluttering.
Follow Marie Kondo’s Rules of Tidying Up to Declutter that Novel
I wish I could say I’ve actually followed the advice in Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up in my own housekeeping. But I seem doomed to live in clutter. Her principles make a lot of sense, though. (Except the one about only having 30 books. 🙂 )
Recently I realized those principles can be applied to writing as well as housekeeping.
1) Commit yourself to decluttering.
Start by saving a copy of your original ms. in case you decide to put something back. Keep copies in several places, so it’s safe.
Also remember that every piece you cut out can be recycled in a story, poem, or separate book.
Now you can be ruthless. Cut this thing to the bone. You can always put stuff back.
2) Imagine your ideal lifestyle writing career
What do you hope to accomplish with your writing? If you’re planning a career as a writer, you’ll want as many titles as possible. Maybe this book can be divided into two or three books? Or maybe you can use it as a map for a whole series
But what if you envision a career in a different genre? Maybe you wrote in this one because you thought it was easier, or more likely to make money.
If this isn’t your ideal genre, this isn’t the book you want to sell first.
If you’re writing romance, but really want a career in women’s literary fiction, or you’re writing a cozy when in your heart of hearts you want to write another Handmaid’s Tale, stop, think, and be honest with yourself. You don’t want to publish a debut novel in the wrong genre. If it succeeds, you’ll be asked for more of the same.
Plus you may have put parts of your ideal book into this one because that’s what your muse does.
Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections began as one chapter in a novel that he ended up discarding. He decided to write a “book that wasn’t dressed up in a swashbuckling, Pynchon-sized megaplot.” His decluttered novel went on to win the National Book Award.
Is there a book inside this one that needs to be liberated?
How does this book fit into the writing career you hope to have? Maybe it’s the practice novel most authors have in a drawer somewhere. If it is, put it in that drawer, open a new doc, and start writing that book you really want to write.
3) Finish discarding first
Two of the biggest problems that land newbie books in the slush pile are 1) too many characters (especially point of view characters) and 2) scenes that don’t further the plot.
So work on discarding those first.
Ask yourself: is the book about one person? Does the reader get distracted from the main story by other characters? Are they hijacking the story?
Decide who the protagonist is and discard anybody that doesn’t add to that person’s story.
Is there a character who takes over around chapter 10 who might need her own book? That’s what happened to me. I realized Princess Regina’s subplot took us away from the main storyline. So I wrote her a book of her own (It’s called Food of Love. It was my first book to attract a publisher.)
How about secondary characters? Can they be consolidated? Could the heroine have one best friend instead of three?
What about minor characters? Did you give each a name and backstory? Pull those people out and save them for short stories. In this novel it’s better to call them “the barista”, “the pizza delivery guy” and “the waitress” unless they become important characters later.
Do you have too many POV characters? Are you in the head of that pizza guy or the barista? Nathan Bransford wrote a great post last month explaining why head-hopping is not “omniscient” storytelling. It’s just lazy and confusing. Declutter!
Now look at those scenes that don’t seem to go anywhere and lack tension. Are they simply about world building, or showing character? How about cutting the scenes and slipping that information into another, more exciting chapter?
4) Tidy by category, not by location
Editing the whole book sentence by sentence is a tedious slog.
Instead, do it by category. Go through and get rid of all the extra adverbs. Then pull the adjectives you can replace with strong verbs. (Note I said “extra”. I’m not anti-adverb or adjective. Just take another look. You’ll be amazed how many you don’t need.)
Then take a second look at those sentences that say “Her heart raced, her stomach clenched, and her body trembled with fear.” Choose one phrased to say she’s scared instead of three (And maybe say it without using a cliché or worrying about whether you need a semicolon in there.)
Then do a search for your favorite crutch words and dump as many as possible. (Mine is “just.”)
Your word count gets slimmed down really fast this way.
5) Ask yourself if it ‘sparks joy’
Yes, you’ve been told to “kill your darlings.” But the truth is darlings are often darling for a reason. If a scene or character “sparks joy” maybe it needs to be there. Literary author and creative writing professor Samuel Park told us why not to kill your darlings in a great post back in 2011.
So look to see if it’s the stuff around the darlings that needs to be cut. As I said above, two of the biggest problems that land newbie books in the slush pile are 1) too many characters and 2) scenes that don’t further the plot. Those are often the characters and scenes that don’t “spark joy.”
Transition scenes are often joyless and unnecessary
Do you have “transportation” chapters—where you’re moving the character from one important scene to another? Maybe your heroine flies back east to reconcile with her mother after she hears an asteroid is about to hit Earth. You don’t have to take us on that plane ride. Have her decide to fly home, then show the scene when she gets out of the taxi at her mother’s house. We all know about airplanes. You don’t have to take us on one more tedious trip.
Ditto the scene where she drives to her boyfriend’s house after she finds out he’s been cheating on her with the astronaut. Or the scene where she puts on that drop-dead outfit so she can seduce the man who decides who gets to go to the space station and survive the asteroid holocaust.
All you need is a scene break. Or even better, a chapter break. Readers love short chapters these days.
So stop hoarding unnecessary scenes and superfluous characters. If they don’t spark joy–toss them. It’s amazing how much better you’ll feel!
***
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) July 7, 2019
For more on decluttering your novel, see Ruth Harris’s post on Stephen King’s rule and the power of the Delete button.
What about you, scriveners? Do you have a WIP or “practice novel” that you’ve crammed with everything but the kitchen sink? Did you use it to try to solve all of life’s persistent problems? Or have you been successful with Marie Kondo’s declutter process in your writing?
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I guess it’s a good thing I am a bare bones writer – stripping is easy when there’s not a lot there.
Plus all but one of my book titles is one word. Simple.
I guess for most writers it’s easy in the beginning to be flowery and put it all down. But extra fluff isn’t needed.
Alex–I’m sure your readers appreciate your “bare bones” style. I know it actually takes longer to write short, concise books than long ones. Vonnegut could spend a day on one sentence. But the reader is going to be happy you did.
First! I love this post, Anne! It is funny and it is sad that it happens so much. I appreciate the clarity. I am going to share this widely. You write one of my favorite blogs.
Mark–Many thanks for the share! Yes. It’s all about clarity. The reader doesn’t want to have to reread that sentence three times. Respecting the reader’s time is as important as having a great hook and strong characters.
Anne—As a minimalist, I couldn’t agree more. Your suggestions are on-target! My post about Stephen King’s 10% Rule and the glories of the delete button, might also help with the Marie Kondo-ing process.
https://annerallen.com/2019/01/stephen-kings-10-rule/
As to writing novels with multiple characters like Modern Women & Husbands And Lovers, I had been writing professionally for almost twenty years when I wrote them. Definitely nothing for a beginning writer to attempt!
Ruth–I should have included that link in the post! Yes, I learned the hard way that controlling all those characters was not a job for a beginner. What a tangled mess that book was!
Anne, if anyone reads my first two practice novels, I will have to kill them. Or actually, that won’t be necessary, because they will have died of boredom and confusion. This post was excellent!
Melodie–LOL. Me too. I finally sent my many copies of my sad practice book into the recycling bin about a year ago. I worked so long on it that I held onto the copies, even though they were doing nothing but gathering dust.. I’ve mined it for other books and several short stories, but the original belonged in the bin.
Kondo + writing is such a good fit. As a Kondophile, I can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner. I will have to do some deep thinking as I am just about to add a subplot, or ‘small story’ as H. R. D’Costa says, and I really want it to spark joy instead of add clutter. Great timing on this post! Thx!
Lissa–So glad to see a Kondo fan here! I love that she gets why we do need to “hoard” some stuff because it sparks joy. Adding a subplot can really perk up a novel. But as you say, it needs to be something you love, not something you added because somebody said you should.
Love this post and will share will all clients — especially in that you make it sound like ‘fun’ to get out the machete…
oyes – on Food of Love — I’m skimming the blurb and get stuck on ‘diminish themselves with dieting’ — so so great! My new mantra (repeated in my head)… And then comes: ‘historic’ and ‘1990s’ –say it isn’t so! This means my ‘prime’ is now historic!! :O))) hmmmmm but it has pricked the interest of my muse…facing the realization that her prime is now historic, what will she do to craft a new ‘prime time’? And the title can be: Boomers on the Edge, how i got to live out my revolution fantasy.
Thanks, Anne!!
Maria–That phrase was one of my “darlings” I refused to drop in spite of some complaints from my first publisher. Yeah, we’re now historical artifacts. 🙂 Love the idea of Boomers on the Edge!
Right! You can take the girl out of the sixties, but you can’t take the sixties out of the girl!
I cannot tell a lie to you Ms. Allen. This post cuts me in half. And then each half grows into a new response and now my brain is cluttered.
Of course ::sighs :: it’s all perfectly correct. I bite my lip but I could never win debating the opposite side.
OTOH! In my field there’s GRRM who trampled all over this notion and sold a billion copies plus video, T-shirts, actions figures and a round of Rap Battles against JRRT. Tons of characters, each lavishly detailed and on their own course. The “one character” of GoT is the throne itself, I guess.
The other word for clutter is “epic”. And if you tell people that’s what you writing, then your tongue is writing checks that your fingers will have to cash. Simple, uncluttered, one-character novels are likely to be better for your career. I wrote the grand epic novel first, then held onto it while I published two shorter novellas each about a different hero as part of a series. THEN I turned back to the big one with, I believe, a sharper ax. Not for whittling down exactly, but cutting a better line through the tale.
And you are SO RIGHT about characters and events growing into other stories. I think that’s a huge key to succeeding with this book while setting up the next ones. Brava.
Will–Each genre has its conventions, of course, and epic fantasy tends to be much longer. But you did exactly the right thing putting out novellas first. Readers could get hooked on your characters before they had to face a huge book.
Interesting about GoT. Yes, the throne probably is the protagonist. Killing off the main character early on was a kick in the gut to a lot of readers, but they were hooked on the big story so they kept on. But like me trying to imitate Ruth Harris back in the 1990s, new writers shouldn’t imitate GRRM. Better to hook readers with shorter books first.
Thank you for this helpful advice, Anne.
I was intrigued to discover that your break out novel was about a protagonist who had began as a secondary character. Great case for never tossing good writing.
Leanne–That’s right! No writing is ever wasted. I’m still finding story ideas in my old stuff.
Me too.
I should have totally thought of this combo post sooner! I love konmari-ing and I am going through exactly this editing process—finally on the last round for this WIP. Finger on the pulse, ladies, well done. ????
Margaret–You’re way ahead of the game if you’re already Konmari-ing. What is most important, I think is the “sparks joy” thing. If it sparks joy, maybe it shouldn’t be cut and you can cut stuff around it.
Ah, simplicity. A great post, though I must admit, my favorite bit came very early on with the image of the overdone cover: ” …a drawing of Noah’s Ark. In it are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Botticelli’s Venus, and The Beatles from the Sergeant Pepper album. Except Ringo looks like Harry Potter. And in the background is a mushroom cloud with the image of a bat in the smoke.” Brilliance!
CS–You’re a master of simplicity! I envy that every time I go to your house. But yeah, I’ve seen covers that bad often. Newbies who think they can design their own covers usually can’t.. 🙂
That was my favorite bit as well!
I’m pretty sure my current novel (book 2 of a trilogy) has the reverse. Because I wrote/am writing this trilogy bass-ackwards, i have too little info in my book. I bareboned it so much that i turned a good bridge novel into a semi-newbie novel.
Sigh.
And yes, a very good editor told me exactly what I need to do in order to get it back to a good bridge novel.
Sigh some more.
GB–It’s true that some novels need the reverse of Marie Kondo-ing. Sometimes we edit too ruthlessly. We forget that the reader doesn’t know this or that, which you take for granted at this point. And yes, that’s when you need a professional editor to steer you back in the right direction. Best of luck.
Anne, I had a similar experience with my first novel–300,000 words, all from the same character’s point of view. This meant that much of the book was people explaining to the main character things that went on when she wasn’t around. An exhausting read, even for the author!
Took a loooong time to declutter, but by the time it was published, it sparked joy instead of dread 🙂
Actually, the process ended up being a valuable lesson: keep haphazard word clutter at bay by writing to an outline. BTW, I recently heard the term “word salad” used to describe writing clutter. Evocative but also disheartening.
Thanks for another common sense piece of writing advice!
Carmen–I feel your pain. I went through similar stuff. I first heard the phrase “word salad” used to describe what happens after a stroke or other brain injury and your words come out garbled You think you’re saying something, but it’s coming out as gibberish.
But it applies perfectly to the kind of wordiness that we can put into those first novels. Always saying the same thing in three different ways. Thanks. It’s a good analogy.
I have two MCs – a husband and wife team of private investigators in my mystery series. I tell part of the story in 1st person POV (from Damien’s perspective) and differentiate Millie’s side of the story by switching to 3rd person POV for her. They typically begin together, and each one goes off on his or her own, coming back together for the climax. There are two main story threads, which end up coalescing toward the end of the book.
I’m a panster, not an outliner. My 1st draft is usually focussed on the action and dialogue, with little attention to description. That gets served up during the first rounds of edits.
I must confess to a lingering tendency to include the voyage from point A to point B. I try to fight it, but it creeps back in from time to time. I usually manage to edit most of that out.
Phyllis–In a mystery, the story arc is always about finding the murderer, so two sleuths investigating what turns out to be the same crime would still make the book about one thing. So there’s probably no clutter there. Starting with a bare-bones story and adding the frills later probably keeps the purple prose at bay. 🙂 Yeah, those transportation scenes are a bear. Sometimes we need them in a rough draft, but later we see we’re spinning our wheels.
My first “practice novel” was a variation on the clutter theme, the clutter being people and events I couldn’t pull off convincingly because I didn’t know enough. I extracted the heart of it, which became a novella.
Liz—Sounds like my first attempt. And pulling a novella out of it was brilliant!
Thanks, Anne! When I went back to it, I was surprised that the novella actually held together.
What fun this post is, thank you. I’m glad I’m not the only one finding links between Marie Kondo’s process and book editing. In fact my agent and I are on this trail right now, preparing a presentation for Romance Writers of Australia’s national conference next month. We’ve both found out that rolling clothes is a fantastic way to store – and find – them. Now to do the same with manuscripts. Maybe scrolls?
Valerie–I’m rolling all my clothes now. Bedding and towels too. It takes less room and everything is right there!
How fabulous that you’re going to be talking about Marie Kondo-ing your fiction at the RWA conference! People will find it a big help.
I’m not sure about scrolls, though. Although if they invent a Kindle you can roll up, I might just go for it!
Oh, yeah, I like the sound of that 🙂
I thank my lucky stars I wasn’t brave enough to travel the self-publishing route with my first novel, or my second, or my third. They were practice novels and belonged in the trunk. While I was drowning in the slush pile, I heard most writers don’t get traditionally published until their fourth or fifth novel. At the time this news gut-punched me, but they were right! It takes time to hone our craft.
Only 30 books per household? *faints*
Sue–No way could I have 30 books. I’m sure I have well over 300. And nobody’s taking them from me! I just keep getting more bookshelves.
I think the biggest downside of the indie publishing movement is so many writers published too soon and never learned to write well. Congrats that you didn’t fall into that trap.
And congrats on your new book deal!! That’s so awesome. True crime is hot right now!
Love these suggestions. I just got back my first YA novel from my developmental editor and I have to make numerous changes, some of which are mentioned in your post. I’m learning something new and maybe I’ll find out that writing women’s fiction is a better road for me since I’ve written 8 of them. We’ll see if I can really write a good YA novel. Learning, learning, learning all the time.
Patricia–Writing YA uses a whole different set of skills, but if you can learn them, there’s a big market for it. Best of luck!
When I write flash fiction, I usually have to cut. When I try my hand at something longer, I find I have to add. Flash is story stripped to the bone, but a novella/novel needs flesh. Just not too much. 🙂
Maybe I should move the Kondo book from my regular TBR bookshelf to my writing TBR bookshelf! 🙂
Madeline–I think writing flash fiction is one of the best ways to learn to edit (and to write.) Every novelist should take the time to write a flash piece or two every so often. It keeps us from getting too cluttered in our writing. Marie’s advice is wonderful. I wish I could follow it better!
Am I the only one concerned by this trend of simpler and simpler books, shorter stories, novellas, and basic language? Does everything really have to be so fast-paced and stripped down to a single basic message? Instead of popcorn novellas with an eyeroll inducing moral center, can we not have depth, layers, nuance, something that actually grows our understanding each time we read it?
I cannot remember the last time I read a book and learned a new word.
H–We all have to learn to walk before we can run. A big novel can be a bestseller, but only if’ it’s written by a pro who can carry it off. If you’re an accomplished novelist with a big fan base, you can write big, sprawling novels and people will eat them up.
But as I have said before, George R. R. Martin can get away with a lot of stuff that you can’t if you’re still only Who R. R. You. 🙂
If you’re looking for a more literary sprawling novel, try Michael Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue or Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. You just might find some new words.
Anne, awesome blog which seems relevant not only in writing but in life. I like the concept of decluttering for writers.
Your blog also reminded me of Ernest Hemmingway’s writing style—lean, spare, down to the bone.
In working on my first book (out at the end of the month…I hope), I fell into this stream of consciousness trap where I added a silly vignette called “The Saddest Sheep in the World.” Another author coaxed me to get rid of the tale because it detracted from the rest of the stories. I had this emotional tie to the sheep. However, I knew she was right and eliminated the clutter.
Kenneth–I’m sure your friend was right to tell you to cut the piece about sad sheep. But what a great title for a blogpost! You could take that vignette ( and any other outtakes and put them on your blog!) Just because it’s clutter in one place doesn’t mean it’s not worth something. You might also be able to sell it to a magazine and make some $$$.. Best of luck.
Anne, only you could make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear! Thank you!