Camping vs. Marching

In this short piece, I'll be talking about camping vs. marching.  Before I pursued my MFA degree, I knew nothing about this “concept”. 

Many writers, for fear of losing readers, will explain everything in their story, not realizing that they will definitely lose their readers this way.  So, how do writers tell us everything?  They might tell us everything a character has on, explain every piece of furniture that’s in a room, detail an entire conversation from beginning to end, relay every minute feeling that comes through the narrator’s mind, and bring us into every sight, smell, taste, sound, touch that occurs within a story – all in the name of making the story feel real to the reader.  In the end, this may make the reader so full off “stuff” that’s unimportant to the actual story that he/she may close the book and find a less tedious (or as I like to say “less chewy”) book to read.

How do writers avoid the clutter?  They focus on the story’s purpose.  They focus on the themes and ideas they want to convey.  Now, let me preface this by saying that this idea should be thought of after writing the book.  I can’t state this enough (and I’ll state it in every article I write); if you’re a writer that can easily get hung up on little things and stop yourself from writing, then TURN OFF THE INTERNAL EDITOR AND WRITE.  Do not think about grammar or story development.  Think about only getting your story – from beginning to end – on the page and then become the perfectionist.

Once you have a story before you, ask yourself the following questions:

·         What’s my story’s purpose?

·         What themes, ideas am I trying to convey?

·         At the end, what do I want the reader to take away from the story?

Having answers to these questions will help you to return to the story and to begin de-cluttering by focusing on each scene you developed.

When you're in a scene, you have to ask yourself, "Is this scene vital to the understanding of the story?"  This, in essence, is the camping and marching question.  If a scene (and all of its components) is important to your story and readers will be lost if you do not put it in, then you want to "camp" in that scene for a while and show the reader what he or she needs to continue with the story.  If the scene is not vital, then you want to "march" right through it, giving the reader exactly what he or she needs and then moving on to the next scene of your story.  What this does is present the reader with a clean, tightly written story – a story in which all the components connect to the reason for the story’s “being” in the first place.