We’ve all had these moments: what you wrote and what you meant are as far apart as a Texas mile. New writers are often reminded that if you get published you won’t be able to sit on the arm of every reader’s chair, explaining what you really meant to say. One of the hardest skills to master is that of keeping your reader experiencing that vivid and continual dream.
Writing Tip for Today: You may have seen RUE written on your draft. The letters stand for Resist the Urge to Explain, and this temptation frustrates many a writer. Here are some easy ways to help the reader experience the dream most effectively:

• Resist Micro-management. Stage directions, especially, can be troublesome if the author tries to be too specific. For instance, is it really important that your character spins to the right or kicks with his left foot? And is it his left or right, or the mirror image? If you write that a character is eight and a half inches away from something, the reader stops reading long enough to wonder, “Exactly how long is that?”Convoluted stage directions can be similarly confusing.
• Describe Just Enough. You may be great at Concrete Sensory Detail, but the reader will forget why he’s in the scene if you go too far in describing. Think of it this way: when you meet someone, you tend to notice a few details, but normally you don’t catalogue people in every detail. Use only the bare minimum of descriptors necessary for the reader to get the idea.
• Balance Scene and Narration. Great writers are usually masters of what’s known as narrative pacing. If you act out a bunch of stuff that doesn’t advance the story, then sum up a pivotal moment in a sentence, your sense of pacing could use some work. Likewise, if you write long chunks of narrative, the reader may decide to skip ahead to the next scene.

Try This! Take a look at a chapter you’ve drafted, or look up a chapter in a published novel. Mark exactly which bits are scene and which are narration. Do you know the difference? How would the flow of the story change if the percentages were reversed? How would you apply the Rule of Three to the passage’s narrative pacing?