Does your novel overexplain common items and gestures?

Posted on August 3, 2021 at 11:13 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

You’ve stuck to just the storytelling. You swear. There’s nothing left to trim. But your novel still feels too long.

Nathan Bransford has a suggestion for this situation, based on years of editing.

He recommends that you look for the everyday items (say, a hammer or a car tire) and common gestures (pointing, for example) in your text to see whether you’ve added unnecessary description.

Odds are extremely good that your readers understand what a hammer looks like or how pointing works — you don’t need to provide commonplace details in these scenarios.