Don't Over Think It

I always tell my students, I can be one of the laziest individuals out there. I know, if you look at my schedule, you would think otherwise, but honestly, I am always out to find a way to make things easier with any task that I do. 

Now, before you get started on me by saying "Come on Scott, you told us there are no shortcuts in this business!" I want to explain that I am not talking about shortcuts. I am talking about trying to find ways to make your life a little less complicated. This is especially true for me when I am looking at ways to help out my authors and their stories. If we can find an easy solution to what might look like a massive problem with their stories, then we are going to take it.

Let's talk, for example, about that infamous GMC for your character. You want your character in your story to do something (it really doesn't matter what it is for right now). But then your wonderful critique partner, you know the one, with the great cheese platter and the fantastic California Chardonnay you have at your meetings, decides now is the time to ask, "But what is the reason for that person to act that way?"

Ugh, I hate when they do that.

Because here is where the problems often show up. Your wonderful critique partner will come up with this ridiculous backstory about when your character fell out of a tree as a young person when she was trying to spy on her neighbor, only to be caught by her father who was an ex-marine and ruled the house with an iron fist. The father then grounded your character for two weeks doing nothing but chores that would make a marine in boot camp cry. Now your character, with a huge about of PTSD every time someone asks then to do something has to take a cold shower.... 

You get the idea, right?

But the reality is, your character can just want to do something because they knew it would be a positive career move. No backstory needed. 

What about when you are trying trying to get your character from one location to the next. Again, I have seen authors create these long scenes of the character riding in a car or walking to the location. Now they attempt to fill the time with mindless conversations and filler information. 

The easier solution? Create a time stamp phrase or montage the scene. For example:

Three hours later after being stuck in traffic, the Hardy Boys made it to the other side of town.

OR

The next 4 weeks was a whirlwind of activities and Joe Hardy got his act together before marrying Nancy Drew...

In other words, keep it simple. You don't have to over work things and fill the story up with words that do nothing to advance the story. All of that extra stuff just drags your story down and distracts from what you really want to get to - the plot and your characters!