Taking Out the Trash

 
This morning my wife and I went for a run, taking a slightly different route than usual. (She thought I needed more hill work. Go figure.) As I ran by one house, I was struck by the trash building up in the front yard. Actually, what I was most struck by were the empty trash dumpsters near the pile of trash. I mean, the universe couldn’t send a clearer sign if it tried: Trash… meet Dumpster.
 
My brain tried to figure this out—as brains are wont to do—and finally settled on something they continually preach about in the nuclear industry: the danger of “off normal” becoming “normal.” (I used to teach a Human Performance class about the sinking of the cruiseferry Estonia in the Baltic Sea. The root cause was the sequential failure—over time—of multiple mechanisms that held the bow door closed, but this was made fatal by the crew becoming inured to it, ignoring the banging noises as the bow door slammed against the ship due to wave action and telling complaining passengers this was “normal.” The bow door finally came open at speed—in the middle of the night in the middle of a very cold ocean—and in no time, eight hundred and fifty souls ended up at the bottom of the sea.)
 
The real lesson is that humans are world-class experts at “getting used to stuff.” Around here we’ve done a bit of building, remodeling, and general spiffing up. And we have an overall rule: Don’t use the room until it’s finished. Because we know of several instances where people have moved into a place before all the finish work was done, and almost invariably it remains un-finished. Sometimes forever. Because after a while you stop noticing that the wall doesn’t have baseboard or the door is missing its trim or the outlet doesn’t have a proper cover. Especially if it’s never had it. Pretty soon it just looks “normal” and you can’t really imagine it any other way.
 
The same with writing.
 
After we’ve lived with a story for a while, it can seem like, well… like that’s the way it is. Period. But in reality, until it’s published and sitting on the shelves of your local bookstore, it’s all fair game. This should be obvious. Sort of like the fact that garbage can be put into a garbage can and they will magically take it away.
 
The problem—in both cases—is seeing it.
 
My first published fiction—an SF story—had a short scene I considered pivotal. It was one of the few action-y bits in the story, and it was the event that had popped into my mind when I first got the idea for the story. Yes, the action taken by the protagonist in that scene was important to the story. But what I couldn’t see was that since the action was self-evident after the fact, the reader didn’t need to actually see it in real time on the page. The reader just needed to get that the hero had indeed taken the clever action, then we needed to quickly move to the final climactic scene.
 
But I couldn’t see that. Because that scene had been there from the very beginning. And because at the time I didn’t really get that every word was up for grabs. So throughout revisions, that scene wasn’t even considered a potential target for tightening or trimming.
 
So I sent the “finished” story to my favorite SF magazine, and soon received a rejection from the mag’s editor. But it was a good rejection, something along the lines of, “We don’t need to see [the beloved scene]. It hurts the pacing. Cut it and artfully tape the ends together and I’ll publish it.”
 
Privately I still had doubts, but I tried it. And—wait for it—it worked. No, not just worked, but improved the story. Trimmer. Tighter. Less boring. (Thanks, Charlie!)
 
The big lesson for me was to learn to see things as though you’re an outsider, seeing it for the first time. Easier said than done, of course, but there are a few tips that help. The first is, assume there is trash in your yard. You can’t always see it right away, but it’s there. Keep looking until you find it, and when you do, put it in the dumpster! The second is, don’t assume the way it’s always been is the best way. Maybe comparison shop, and not defensively. When you see outlet covers in someone else’s house, don’t say, “Well, fine for them, but I don’t need them!” Instead imagine what your house might be like if you actually took the time to install covers on all your outlets. Maybe try a few and see what you think. And finally, don’t move in until it’s done. Done-done. (Submitting too soon may be the most prevalent mistake writers make.) When you think your manuscript’s finished, if at all possible, wait… work on something else for a while… maybe get a beta read or two… then go over it again with the “What’s wrong with this picture?” mindset, actively looking for trash to take out.
 
We can’t see what we don’t look for. But when we seek—and find, and remove—the trash that’s been there so long it looks “normal,” it really increases the curb appeal of our work.
 
Happy hunting!