Writing Tools: WEbook Writing Secrets
Cut the Stage Directions
by Melissa Jones
Melissa arrived at the office five minutes late, as usual. She opened the door and walked down the hall. She put her laptop down on her desk and sat in her chair. She double-clicked on her Outlook folder, and brought up her cluttered to-do list. Stage Directions Blog was written right at the top. Great. She’d been looking forward to this for a long time. But first, she had to do something about breakfast. It was no good writing on an empty stomach. She pulled her whole wheat bagel out of her backpack and unwrapped it. She put a napkin in her lap. She tore off a chunk of bagel and put it in her mouth. She chewed. She swallowed. Soon, the bagel was gone, and it was time to write the blog entry. She opened Microsoft Word (despite the program’s nightmarish incompatibility with Typepad’s text editor), and put her hands on the keyboard. She began to type.
Cut!
You follow all that, readers? Or did you scan right down to the bottom, thinking, “All right already with the napkin in your lap! Get to the good stuff!”
If you answered the latter, I don’t blame you. That paragraph is a living, breathing specimen of a prose writer’s mortal enemy: Stage Directions.
Any time you narrate a physical action that gets a person from point A to point B, you’re using Stage Directions. Of course, sometimes it’s necessary to include some stage directions. But many writers – especially novices – use far too many stage directions in their writing.
The term Stage Directions comes from – you guessed it – playwriting, where stage directions are used to tell actors what they should do with their bodies during a play. Some plays include more stage directions than others. The most basic stage directions provide cues only for when a character enters or exits the stage. But plays never provide detailed directions for every single action a character should make during the play. Why not? Because actors and directors would revolt! “Don’t micromanage me!” they would exclaim. “I can create my own interpretation of my character’s actions! Give me some creative freedom!”
Your readers are sort of like these actors and directors. If a person you’re writing about goes from the kitchen table to the back door, you don’t need to tell your readers about how they stood up, walked around the table, walked into the hall, opened the door to the laundry room, etc. Your readers are perfectly capable of filling in the blanks with their imaginations. In fact, the process of doing this is one of the major pleasures of reading. Don’t rob your reader of that pleasure by micromanaging his or her imagination.
How do you know what stage directions to put in, and which to leave out? Practice, practice, practice. You might start by putting a lot of unnecessary directions in, and then taking them out in editing. Wise, helpful readers can help you find places in your writing where you use too many stage directions. As a general rule, you should include only those physical actions which are absolutely necessary for a reader’s comprehension of a scene; and those which reveal something interesting about your character or his/her situation. If you’re still uncertain, pretend your characters are capable of teleporting both through time and space. If you can teleport them somewhere without totally confusing your reader, or missing something crucial in the story, don’t describe the steps it would take for them to get there.
Now try this on for size:
Melissa arrived at the office five minutes late, as usual. She glanced at her cluttered to-do list: Stage Directions Blog. Great. She’d been looking forward to this for a long time. But first, she had to do something about breakfast. It was no good writing on an empty stomach. She tried to make her whole wheat bagel last, but before she knew it, it was time to write the blog entry. She opened Microsoft Word (despite the program’s nightmarish incompatibility with Typepad’s text editor), and began to type.
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