Screenwriter William Goldman says, ‘You always attack a movie scene as late as you possibly can. You always come into the scene at the last possible moment.’
The mantra is: Arrive late and leave early. And the same should be true of fiction.
Arriving at a scene or plot as late as you possibly can as a writer usually means you can avoid too much of an exposition (otherwise known as the classic ‘info dump’). If you jump straight into the action, perhaps in the middle of a scene, or once the beginning of a plot line has already happened, you can avoid spelling things out for the reader. You’re in the thick of it, so there’s no time or space to fall into the trap of lengthy character descriptions or too much background information.
In fact, beginning your novel as late as possible will work hand in hand with the infamous ‘show don’t tell’. If you don’t have an initial paragraph or chapter to describe the scene or the character, you are forced to slot in the details in other ways – by showing the reader what they need to know, rather than telling them.
In my experience, arriving as late as possible to a scene is usually far later than you first expect it to be. I have been told on countless occasions in my writing journey to get rid of prologues and opening chapters. When revising your manuscript, consider whether your opening paragraphs and/or chapters are really needed. Do they give the reader anything they don’t get in a different way later on?
Of course, some exposition is required for a successful story arc – a novel will likely begin with the status quo and end with a ‘new normal’ after a series of conflicts and ebbing and flowing tension (true of all genres from the more obvious thriller through to a gentler romance) – but consider how that exposition moves forward your narrative, and engages the reader in your novel. If it doesn’t move things forward in some way, does it really need to be there?
Once you’ve arrived late, you want to get out as soon as you can, at both chapter and whole manuscript level. In any novel, leaving a chapter or scene as early as possible is what keeps your reader interested – your novel becomes a ‘page turner’. By ending a chapter while things are still at the height of exciting, or perhaps unresolved in some way, your reader isn’t going to turn off their bedside light. Instead, they will continue to read in the hope that some of their questions are answered before they give in to sleep.
The same is true of your whole novel. You don’t want to linger in the story for longer than necessary. Ideally, you want to leave your reader on a high, perhaps even wanting more if you have other books available or if your novel is part of a series. When revising your manuscript, consider the genre and at what point your reader might be satisfied. Once you reach that point, you might want to cut anything that comes afterwards, leaving your reader contented with the outcome and more likely to recommend your book to someone else.
I have found cutting so much of my own writing for these reasons tough. Especially that first chapter – it’s the chapter that might have appeared fully formed in your imagination. It is likely the chapter you’ve spent more time on than any other. But, look at the manuscript as a whole and you might just find that, although you needed to write those chapters for yourself, that perhaps, the reader doesn’t need to read them.
