In a post on the Killzone blog, Terry Odell offers advice on R.U.E. – Resisting the Urge to Explain. “As authors, we want to make sure our reader’s ‘get it,’ so we tend to go overboard with information, explaining far too much,” Odell explains.
This is easy to do. Odell offers a few examples:
- “Mary laughed so hard, she was afraid she’d pulled a stomach muscle. Susie had just told the funniest joke Mary had ever heard.”
- “After Bill cancelled their date, claiming his aunt was sick, Mary was depressed. She took one bite of chocolate cake, then pushed the plate away.”
- “Mary’s feet felt like lead. She couldn’t run fast enough to escape the man chasing behind her.”
In each of these cases, one or part of one of the sentences is redundant. You don’t need to say that someone laughed and also explain that she thought something was funny. We get it, and you should trust the reader to get it as well. All of those examples could be rewritten as one sentence, or with other details that provide the subtext of the character’s actions without resorting to “she was…” phrasing.
