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Q&A Idea overflow in plotting?

I think you'll be surprised by how little detail you need to include in your story to get the point across. If you're worried about how to include all of your ideas thoroughly enough to tell the st...

posted 4y ago by Kevin‭

Answer
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Kevin‭ · 2020-01-20T20:22:10Z (over 4 years ago)
I think you'll be surprised by how little detail you need to include in your story to get the point across. If you're worried about how to include all of your ideas thoroughly enough to tell the story you've envisioned, I think the solution is surprisingly simple: The vast majority of what you want to say can be left unsaid, entirely implied, and your readers will get it!

This is a rule of thumb I've found helpful when writing: You only need to include details that contribute directly to the story. The reasoning behind this is, if you stick to the chunkiest meat of what makes your story move forward, you'll keep your readers engaged. More than that, in fact - You'll invite them to actively interpret and predict what's happening with each individual line. You won't accidentally include any red herrings that a reader might try to dig deep into without uncovering anything that helps them understand your story more deeply.

This means that there are whole rich worlds that you don't have to explicitly describe in your story. You don't have to give us what an ordinary day for your protagonist working at the newspaper is like. You don't have to explain the entire college town. You don't have to make sure the reader understand exactly how the visions or supernatural powers work.

So you're free! You can just not write these details in order to focus on the core of your story, and your creative vision will get through! In fact, by not including all of these details, your story will be stronger for all the reasons I explained above.

-----

I want to make it clear, I'm not saying that you won't benefit from understanding all of these details yourself. If it's what you're interested in, some thorough worldbuilding will help your story be more consistent and stronger for it. You just don't need to reveal all of the background details explicitly.

And the operative word in that last sentence is _explicitly_. Omitting thorough details of all of your ideas does _not_ mean hiding them from the reader. On the contrary, you're giving your reader the extraordinary respect of assuming they can read in-between the lines and use their imagination to fill in the details you don't spell out for them.

For example, I don't think it would help your story to describe what a typical day at the newspaper is like for your protagonist. But when we jump into an _untypical_ day with some kind of conflict already boiling, a smart reader will be able to figure out what an ordinary day would have been like based on what the protagonist reacts to. Likewise, you don't need to explain exactly how the magic in your story works. If your main character struggles through enough to understand her powers and visions enough to take advantage of them and avoid getting trapped by their weaknesses, the reader will understand how the magic works as well, more than well enough to track with where the story is going.

You won't lose tone, either. In fact, the dark and mysterious tones it sounds like you're aiming for will be enhanced. As a rule, whenever a reader pieces something important for themselves, they'll feel it far more strongly than if you spelled it out for them. For example, avoiding fully explaining your magic system will avoid the mistake Star Wars made with the force. In the original trilogy, the force was vaguely explained as a mystical power tying the universe together. This mysticism felt right. It made the themes of good triumphing over evil because that's the way things _should_ be resonate more strongly. But then the sequels explained where the force came from, and the magic was completely deflated, even though we could understand it more clearly. Especially if you want your story to be paranormal and mysterious, don't give us all of the answers outright!

So instead of explicitly checking off all of the ideas you have, take the route that requires a shorter page count and let your reader uncover the richest ideas for themselves.