Avoiding Repetition

Don’t tell your readers what they know already

I’m under contract to produce 100,000 words for my next book. Today I passed the 75,000 word mark. Phew! But I’m still at the stage where I’m worried about being able to hit the word count. So I’m tempted to be as longwinded as possible in order to achieve the appropriate length. Of course that isn’t the answer and I know I will end up cutting a lot of waffle further down the line. But every time I see the current word tally go up on my computer tool bar I feel a little calmer.

One thing it’s tempting to do when we’re trying to bulk out our manuscripts is repeat information. For example, in my work in progress, I have a character finding out that her boyfriend has been arrested for illegally listening to the wireless (my novel is set on German occupied Jersey in world war two). She then goes home to tell her mother the awful news, and later visits her boyfriend’s father. It is tempting each time Jenny, my protagonist, meets a new character to have her impart the news afresh. But the reader has already witnessed Pip (the boyfriend) being arrested so they don’t need to be told about that a couple of times more. All I need to write is ‘Jenny told her the news of Pip’s arrest’ and the reader will immediately fill in the details they have absorbed from earlier in the novel when they witnessed the event first hand. If I simply repeat information the text will lose pace and the reader will become bored.

 So tempting as it is, I need to avoid this kind of repetition. My extra words should come from going deeper into characters’ reactions, giving my scenes additional texture or having more action and/or dialogue.

Repeating information is a cheap way to boost word count – and ultimately a waste of time when it gets cut further down the line.