If your book is boring, slow it down

Most people think their memoir will be more interesting if they include lots and lots of things happening. They think that keeping the action moving is the key to a successful plot.

The reality is that too many events in rapid succession will usually bore your reader.  I know this is counterintuitive, so let me give you an example of writing that has tons of stuff happening.

“That summer I moved to North Carolina. Nick came into the picture soon after that. When we were married, I promised at this time I would make it work. Three months later, I learned I was pregnant. Jonah came into our lives that year on Christmas Day. By the time he started preschool, I was starting to feel the first warning signs of depression. I went to a therapist, and three years later, I finally started to feel some relief.”

So many of the student assignments I get read like this. So what is the problem with this kind of writing? 

You're telling me lots of stuff that happened. But I’m not living through any of these events with you. If you quickly rush through a number of events, you will lose your reader. 

THE FIX​

The solution is to take one or two of these events, and really develop them fully for your reader. For the sake of example, I'm going to pick the sentence, “Three months later I learned I was pregnant.”

Let me show you how I rewrote this entire paragraph around that single idea:

“Learning I was pregnant brought up mixed feelings for me. On one hand, I was thrilled to have a mini version of Nick growing inside of me. I hoped that this baby would be exactly like him, empathetic and kind and always there with a hug when I was having a bad day. On the other hand, I was worried that the baby might get too many of the bad genes, such as my mother's mental illness. How much of Nick would my baby inherit? And how much would come from me?” 

This paragraph is about the same length as the original version, but less is happening. Don't you find it more interesting? Don't you feel like you're living through this with the narrator and that you understand what it's like when she gets pregnant? 
In the first version, I covered lots of events, and many writers think that's better because so much is happening. But the opposite is really true. 

If I can give you just one tip to slow your writing down, it is this: 

Make a single point per paragraph. 

Start your paragraph with a topic sentence and spend the rest of your paragraph expanding on that idea. If you do this, your book will usually be moving along at the right speed.

This one tip will do wonders to really overhaul your prose. 


Wishing you happy writing!