5 Things to Cut From Your Novel

There’s no right or wrong way to write a novel, which means there’s no one-size-fits-all guide to crafting the perfect manuscript. That being said, there are a few good rules of thumb that can make your writing more concise, entertaining, and impactful.

Below is a list of five things that might be weighing your manuscript down. These rules will generally lead to a cleaner final draft, but when it comes to writing, rules are meant to be broken. Whether you take this as advice or a challenge, here are five things to cut from your novel.

1. Adverbs

Plenty of experts agree that adverbs are a common weak point in fiction writing. They tend to be an easy cop-out and a classic example of telling versus showing.

For example, your manuscript might say, “She left the room dramatically,” instead of “She left the room, kicking the leg of her chair and pushing a glass of water off the counter before slamming her bedroom door behind her.” In the first sentence, we know she made a dramatic exit, but we don’t know what that looks like. In the second sentence, the reader doesn’t need to be told that the character acted dramatically, because they can tell through her actions.

Adverbs aren’t always the enemy, though. It’s just a matter of deciding when your reader might benefit from more detail and when they could use a break!

2. Transition Words

If there’s one thing that immediately pulls me out of a fiction story, it’s transition words. When you’re immersed in a novel, this shift to formal language can feel abrupt and jerky, throwing you right back into the real world. Words like however and therefore come across as stiff and academic, and usually your manuscript won’t suffer from just taking them out.

For example, you might write. “Veronica wanted to spend the afternoon at the park. However, Mark’s mom needed him to clean the house, so he told her he couldn’t make it.” If you remove “however” from this sentence, the meaning remains the same, but it feels less rigid. Simplistic as this example might be, transitional words and phrases are something simple to cut if you’re looking to immerse your reader in your story and create a more powerful effect.

3. Lengthy Exposition

In fiction writing, the best practice is usually to begin your story when something interesting happens. Background information is important, but if the first ten pages of your novel feel more like an info dump than a story, you might lose your opportunity to hook a reader’s interest.

Don’t worry though, you don’t have to cut all that setup you spent months coming up with. Breaking up these lengthy blocks of exposition and finding a new starting point just might stop your readers from putting down your book before it even begins.

4. Blocks of Character Description

Some writers feel like their reader needs to know everything about their characters right off the bat. This often leads to long, awkward descriptions of what outfit a character is wearing, or an entire scene where the main character looks in a mirror and thinks about all of his or her physical features.

When it comes to characterization, it’s okay if the reader doesn’t have a picture-perfect image in their head in the first few scenes. What matters more is getting a sense for who the character is as a person and why we should or shouldn’t like them. Large blocks of physical description disrupt the flow of your story, but you can convey all this information more effectively by dispersing it over time.

5. Excessive Inner Monologue

Especially in first-person narratives, it can be difficult to create a balance between what is happening and how the main character feels about what is happening. It’s important to find a balance between keeping your character a complete mystery and giving everything away.

A small amount of inner monologue can make a reader feel close to a character, while too much of it can make the reader bored or even annoyed. It’s much more interesting to read a scene where the setting, objects, and other characters are engaging with each other rather than a lot of analysis and overthinking coming from a character.

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