“DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING, STAND THERE!”

There is a saying, “Doing anything is better than doing nothing.” For the indecisive and deliberate decision maker, this means the longer you take to make a decision, the more likely the decision is going to be taken out of your hands, made for you by fate or the actions of others, and not likely in your favor. You could also say that refusing to make a decision or to act is, in effect, making a decision. There is statistical proof that given a choice of two options, the chance of making the correct choice goes down every time one changes one’s mind. Then there’s the whole Let’s Make A Deal scenario.

Said most simply, fortune favors the bold.

Okay, so here’s another patented Kevin-Tracy-Pointless-Digression, right? Stick with me. I’m going somewhere with this, and yes, it pertains to writing craft.

I’m currently re-reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a Victorian Gothic novel about the eponymous vampire. The narrative is among some of the tightest prose I’ve read in classic literature, which is sometimes criticized for pointless digressions or slow pacing. At approximately 500 pages (depending on the edition) the story does move at a deliberate pace, but every scene is germane to the plot. For a Victorian-era novel, there is little or no characteristic sidetracking or erroneous scenes. The plot is advanced at every turn of the page.

I write about pacing your novel a lot, and it’s because I think the pacing of a story is critical to keeping a reader’s interest and holding them in a story. Your plot doesn’t have to be action-packed so long as it’s tightly plotted and paced, such that every turn of the page reveals story progression in such a way that makes the reader want to keep turning pages. Don’t let your pace lag; keep it moving. Again, not necessarily fast per se, so long as it does move.

What’s the difference between a sidetrack and a subplot? It’s a fine line, but to me a sidetrack or digression usually has no connection to the main plot, and often ends up going nowhere. It stands to reason, then, that a subplot bears some impact, even if only tangentially, on the main plot. For example, there is a science fiction writer I won’t name because he’s held as one of the giants, but I don’t care for his writing because it is, in my opinion, nothing but sidetracks and digressions, all sorts of minor storylines, none of which ultimately go anywhere (or at least nowhere satisfying), including the main plot.

So when you find yourself in the swamp (that hot mess of a middle where you’ve opened strong and you know where you want to end up, but you can’t think of what to make happen in the middle to make the end an interesting destination for the reader), what can you do? Here’s where bold action can save your book, and it can even be fun.

When you’re stuck, get up off your writing chair, go for a jog or go grocery shopping, anything you clear your head. Then the moment you sit back down, pick something totally random to happen to one of your characters and write it down immediately. Don’t think too hard about it, just write it. Many writing coaches and teachers will tell you to ask yourself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen at this point in my story?” then make it happen. That works too.

This sort of bold action shakes up the swamp, can make it interesting and pick up the pace again, and might even change your ultimate story for the better. Try it next time you’re stuck and let me know what happened!