A Call to Action-What a reader really needs to know

Part 1

 

Sally went to the store. She bought a gallon of milk. She returned home to find her front door standing open and all of her belongings scattered across the living room floor.

The above paragraph depicts a fictional scenario from an unwritten book; however, it’s a scene that we’ve all seen at one time or another. Where does the real action begin? When Sally discovers her home has been vandalized. Do the readers really need to know where Sally had gone and what she had bought? Does it help to set the scene in any way?

Unless the milk is going to play a large part in the scene, the answer is no. Any action not pertinent to the storyline should be discarded as too much unimportant action is boring and will have your readers closing the book or hitting the home button on their e-reader.

Knowing when you’re providing too much information can be tricky, especially when your characters are moving about the room. The last thing you want to do is give your readers a line by line diagram of every movement. Some parts of fiction can and should be left to the imagination.

In the next installment of this series, I’ll tell you about an acronym that helps me keep the scenes as strong as possible without overloading the characters with actions.