Novel Tumor

I know a thing or two about tumors. My older sister has had an astrocytoma in her brain for twenty years. Sounds like the name of a star or a heavenly constellation. I wish. It’s a malignant brain tumor that for some unknown reason hasn’t killed her. But it has greatly impacted her standard of living.

This brings me to novel tumors.

In a few weeks, I’ll begin edits on my sixth novel. I’ll be on the lookout for these beastly growths. Do you know what a novel tumor could possibly be? If you guessed an unneeded character or a scene that spins the novel off course, then you got it.

Novel tumors are anything growing rampant in a work that shouldn’t be there. It’s worth it to consider cutting these.

Examples include:
rabbit trails, overwriting, a theme or message shoved into a scene, overly manipulated conflict and/or tension, floundering or weak characters, awkward dialogue, flowery language, resolve that occurs too “conveniently”, lectures or preachy scenes, scenes with no point (floating on a duck pond instead of rushing down a river), long weather descriptions, scenes out of voice or POV, and too much exposition or backstory

I intend to be vigilant with my edits. Novel tumors don’t always show up immediately like they do on MRIs or CAT scans. Because these weak places aren’t always easy to spot, I’ll have to dig further than pesky backyard moles to get to them.

Sometimes novel tumors are masked as benign when really they have the potential to cause a slow decay and miserable atrophy.

This reminds me of my teeth. I had a root canal on a tooth back in my twenties. Every time I visit the dentist I’m told I should consider a crown for that tooth. I keep blowing it off, insisting I don’t feel any pain. Finally, a dental hygienist was smart enough to call me out. “You won’t feel pain,” she said. “That tooth has had a root canal.”

I can proceed with my edits pretending certain novel tumors won’t cause pain to the outcome of my work, but by doing that I’m only delaying the inevitable. Tumors spread. Tumors are ugly. They don’t belong. Tumors need to be excised from novels. As writers, we hold the scalpel in our hands whenever we sit to edit our work.

It’s my prayer novel six will make it through surgery.

“’When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story…When you rewrite your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.’” from Stephen King’s On Writing

*photo by flickr