Fewer ideas, but better

One stupidly simple rule to help you focus your story

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Quick note on a New Project: Nat Eliason and I are running the classic internet writer playbook and starting a podcast. But it’s all about how we’re trying to go from internet writers → authors.

  • Non-fiction vs fiction

  • Traditional publishing vs self publishing

  • The messy business side of writing & story

Nat got a $275k advance on his first book while I got 90+ rejections back in 2020 on mine. We aren’t going to sugarcoat anything. Some aspects of the publishing world are tough, and there are far easier ways to make money than writing books!

Often, writers will do things like this “looking back.” Instead, we want to do it now. In the moment. We’re both experimenting. There is no real playbook, especially with fiction.

Our goal is simple — Share everything we’re doing. We won’t gatekeep what’s working, and we won’t pretend things are going swimmingly when they’re not.

If you’re writing a book you want to get into the world one day, this is for you. Because we’re right there with you. You can listen to the first episodes on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple. Would love to know what you think of them.

Now to today’s newsletter…

Last week, a friend edited a short piece of writing for me. Here’s the feedback he shared – and what I think applies to almost all writing and story:

Some of this is specific to the piece (for a potential client). But, I think, this line hits home on what goes wrong in so many stories.

Fewer ideas, but better.

Maybe it’s the internet writer in me, but I often underdevelop ideas rather than overdevelop them. Sometimes, this means I need more words. Other times, this means I try to fit seven ideas where focusing on one or two would be more impactful. I go shallow on many, but deep on none.

It’s not that numbers three to seven are bad, per se, but more so that they’re taking valuable time and space from the best ideas. Applied to story, the word ‘ideas’ could be replaced with many things.

Fewer plots, but better. Fewer characters, but better. Fewer themes, but better. Fewer scenes, but better.

I’ll stick with the word ‘ideas’ to avoid confusion.

I find that my stories get in trouble when I try to do too much. That leads to one of two things, neither of which you want to happen. One, the Reader gets confused when you bounce between too many ideas, too quickly. Or, two, the Reader gets bored and frustrated because you don’t go deep enough on your best ideas.

And, because I’m not George RR Martin, I can’t yet juggle a dozen competing ideas and come out of it with a 900 page story you don’t want to put down.

So, that leads to one idea. Simplify the variables in your story, but peel the layers back deeper. The trick then becomes what to simplify down to.

For me, when I feel the story becoming overburdened and like I’m starting to juggle too many things, I use a journal and divide it into categories. Plot points, Themes, Characters, etc, like those listed above. Then, very simply, I’ll write everything that falls into those categories within the section of the story I’m worried about. Visually, it becomes easy to see what has become too crowded.

I like this exercise because it works on short or long stories. Heck, it’d even work on an essay like this that isn’t really a story at all. Ask yourself: Am I trying to get across too many ideas? You’ll know very quickly if the answer is yes. And, if you’re like me, you already knew the answer before you started the exercise, but you needed to see it to confirm it. Trust that instinct. “Kill your darlings,” as some might say.

When you scrap one part of your story, it doesn’t just simplify. You’re actually giving the other, more important parts of your story space to breathe. Think of it as a percentage. Now, those better ideas take up a higher percentage of the available pie. Then, when you start to dig deeper on them, their impact compounds even further.

What parts of your story pull you in? Which ones do you keep coming back to? And, conversely, which parts do even you struggle to pay attention to? That may be the story’s way of communicating with you. Maybe it’s trying to tell you where to focus.

As my friend said – Fewer ideas, but better.

Have an awesome week.

Nathan

PS. Oddly, I found myself initially resistant to the feedback… despite it being awesome feedback. I think that’s because I don’t work with editors often. I write, and I ship. So it was a needed reminder. Great editors are worth their weight in gold.

Trivia — A Sentence I Wish I Wrote

I love this line. What classic novel does it come from? Tap your best guess.

"You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."

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