It took me a long time to learn that less is more–seven books, of time, in fact. They’re still with me, hidden away in boxes. Learning curves, all of them, and for that they have a special place in my heart, but they’re also books only a mother could love. They’re more than ugly ducklings, because they never grew up into anything else. My problem was that I kept coming up with what I thought were cool ideas–lots of them. And all those ideas would get smashed into one story. It was a lot like cooking and deciding that if a little spice was good, why not throw in some of every spice in the cupboard. No wonder those stories couldn’t be rescued.

These days I advocate–and try to practice–that less is more. One good idea is great in a story–it’s a good hook and I really don’t need to complicate it into a ball of tangled yarn. That includes not overdoing it with the characters–it’s often better to trim down the number of characters. Some of the best advice I ever was given was to look to where I could put two (or three) characters together to make one far more interesting character. This keeps the technical challenges down so I can focus on making the characters and story that is there the best possible.

The main thing that taught me how to trim down–and it wasn’t just those seven manuscripts–was to learn to write a good short story. Short means you have to focus, and there isn’t room to do anything but a tight structure. With just two main characters characters, the focus became my characters–and a really good story with great description. It was lovely to write that story. I had time to breathe, to develop, to enjoy the world. And I had a huge ‘ah ha’ moment. And that is simple is much more challenging than complex.

To go back to that cooking metaphor, when you have a lovely simple dish with only three or four ingredients, those ingredients have to be of very good quality. In fiction, that means only a few well developed characters, one great idea, one strong theme, one central conflict. And the ability to throw out what’s not working–or what doesn’t fit. It’s about paring down to the core so I know what the core is in the story. And it’s about delivering really good prose. I can do that when I’m not trying to juggle too many technical challenges.

So these days I leave the too many viewpoints alone. I look to make the cast small enough to manage. I like the focus of a good story well-told, and it’s not necessary to do more.

And I’m not alone–others see these same issues of sinking a good story (or kitchen sinking it) with too much going on:

TOO MUCH PLOT–https://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/too-much-of-a-good-thing-dont-sink-a-story-with-too-much-plot

COMMON MISTAKES–http://www.foremostpress.com/authors/articles/mistakes_beginners.html

DO’s AND DON’Ts of MIXING GENRES–https://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/get-published-sell-my-work/the-dos-and-donts-of-combining-genres

GET TO KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS–https://theeditorsblog.net/2013/03/22/get-to-know-your-characters/