When drafting a scene, an essay or article, writers often create rabbit holes or tangents that don’t work. Here’s how to fix them.
Writing Tip for Today: How can writers spot rabbit holes in their drafts and learn to either delete or move them?
Drafting Creatively
When you embark on a writing project, try not to worry about creating rabbit holes. Sometimes tangents that you identify as not fitting their place in the draft may be expanded on elsewhere or moved from one part to another. Eliminating rabbit holes too soon may actually curb your ideas or original takes.
As I’ve said often, don’t edit yourself when you draft. It’s OK to draft a hot, stinking mess. The point is to bring out your original ideas and style or voice. Writers often struggle to craft an original writing voice. Drafting freely gives you an excellent way to start seeing where your unique voice rests.
A wonderful writer friend, Abigail Thomas, has written bestselling books and has been endorsed by writers such as Stephen King. Her advice? “Strive to do the kind of writing that sneaks up on you and tells the truth before you’ve had time to tidy it up.” Freeing your writing in this way liberates your creativity but also may create a few rabbit holes or tangents as you draft.
Spotting Tangents
Over my writing career, I’ve learned that I create rabbit holes in various ways. Sometimes a whole paragraph or anecdote gets rabbit hole status because it’s repetitious. Other times, I forget my theme statement or promise to the reader that I’ve already stated. If a passage doesn’t fit into that promise, it’s a rabbit hole.
When your draft is finished, let it sit for at least a day, preferably longer. When you come back to your work, those tangents should be easier to identify as you gain objectivity. If you have a feedback or critique group, just reading your work aloud can make rabbit holes stand out in neon colors. If not, your writing partners have more distance from the work and can help you see those tangents more easily.
Try this experiment: Take the last first draft of a scene, an essay, chapter or article and see if you find any descriptions that seem like repeats and pick the best one. Look for places in the work where you feel that little nudge of “Huh? Why is that in there?” Practice and writing a lot will aid your skill level.
Look for places in the work where you feel that little nudge of “Huh? Why is that in there?”
Axing and Moving
Choosing the best metaphor, description or illustration strengthens the passage. Too many competing illustrations or descriptions weaken the writing. Don’t limit yourself as you create but be willing to kill those repetitive darlings in later edits.
Sometimes, though, these competing turns of phrase are all decent. Instead of deleting the runners-up, create a special file or place in a different scene or chapter. Darlings can get second chances if you separate them in the work.
Yet if you’ve done a lot of research for your work, it’s tempting to cram every detail into the work. Instead of enhancing the manuscript, however, overloading with too many details can create deep rabbit holes. These tangents can leave readers wondering why you strayed away from your original reader promise. Period research is fine, but don’t use details just to prove what you know. By streamlining or eliminating rabbit holes, you’ll be helping readers to enjoy your work.
