How do I avoid rambling in first person narratives?
When writing in first person narrative, there are points when the narrator expresses their opinion on a situation, the emotions they're feeling and so on. I've read books where there are several paragraphs at once of just the narrator talking about something and how they feel about it or recalling past events or filling in the reader on pertinent information. Even simple things like their hatred of the green sweater their grandma bought them or how the lock on their front door needs to be changed.
But when does it stop being character development or story development and start being annoying? When do I cross the line between what is acceptable and just unnecessary rambling?
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1 answer
The simple answer to this is that this stuff works when it is revelatory, when it shows the reader something they care about, when it draws them in. That is not about quantity, it is about aptness. Is the hatred of a green sweater or the need to fix the lock on the front door revelatory? Not in themselves, but perhaps in context. Sometimes the detail itself does not matter but the context in which a detail of this type occurs to them. Does it reveal distraction or avoidance or sentimental attachment?
Merely cataloguing a scene will be tedious. There needs to be significance to the details. They need to reveal something, or build towards something, or move the arc of the story forward in some way.
How do you know if they are doing this? Only, I think, by being ruthlessly honest with yourself. Are you being self indulgent or lazy? Can you justify exactly why every word, every image, is just what it is? Do you understand exactly what it contributes to the picture you want to build for the reader?
If not, you are rambling.
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