THE PROBLEM WITH STAGE DIRECTIONS

Stage directions aren’t only found in scripts.

“I can’t believe this. I have to call Dan!”

Rodney jumped out of bed and ran to the jacket on the hook by his door. He rummaged through his pockets before finding his cell phone and put in his password. With sweaty fingers, he punched in Dan’s number and put the phone to his ear.

Dan picked up the phone. “What is it, Rod?”

“Dan, I’m so glad to hear your voice!”

In this example, the second paragraph is jam-packed with stage direction: explicit details about a character’s actions. In theory, there’s nothing wrong with showing us what a character does in a scene, and whenever you write action, you will inevitably add a few (or more) phrases of stage direction into your manuscript. After all, there are only so many ways to get a character from point A to B without simply showing us what they’re doing.

The problem with stage direction isn’t that it exists in the first place, but that it often repeats unnecessary actions, states the obvious, and slows down the pacing of our story.

repetition

In the example above, how many times are we told that Rodney is calling Dan?

He says: “I have to call Dan!”

He finds his cell phone

He punches in Dan’s number

He puts the phone to his ear

Dan picks up the phone

Dan answers the phone

Rod says: “Dan, I’m so glad to hear your voice!”

By repeating the same information this many times, we bore our readers by subconsciously telling them that we don’t trust them to understand what’s going on with less action. Let’s see how short we can make this exchange while retaining all the necessary information.

“I can’t believe this!”

He grabbed his phone from his jacket.

“What is it, Rod?”

“Dan, I’m so glad to hear your voice!”

In this draft, we’ve established that Rod is in shock, which causes him to get his phone, and then he uses his phone to call Dan. All it takes is 23 words to get across the same information the first draft said in 72. What we lose in “detail” we make up for in brevity and speed, which are important in a fast-paced scene like this. Rod isn’t standing around dawdling and neither should our prose!

stating the obvious

After revising the excerpt, what did we lose? We no longer know that Rod was planning to call Dan, nor that his fingers were sweaty while he typed in Dan’s number. You could make the case that it is important to know these things, that the reader will feel closer to Rod’s emotions and motivations by keeping them in, but really, the dialogue says everything in this scene.

Presumably, we know what has happened to cause Rod to panic in the lines before this excerpt. We are already aware that he has received bad news, therefore we don’t need to know that he’s sweating (read: anxious). Because draft 2 is so short, the reader doesn’t need to know who Rod is calling before we get there. They will be able to put together that Rod is calling Dan because he’s stressed about the bad news. There’s no need to state the obvious.

Believe in your readers. They’re smarter than you think!

pacing

Longer scenes take longer to read, no matter how long the scene actually takes in-book. In most cases, removing stage directions will help nudge your story along and adding them in will slow it down. Sometimes, adding them in can be a good thing. We don’t always want our scenes to move like they’re being chased by wolves. Consider this:

“Jessica, I…”

We locked eyes and suddenly we were kissing.

This could work perfectly in many novels. But what if you’re writing a romance? A combination of stage direction and internal dialogue can slow down a tender scene and make the reader feel at one with your characters.

“Jessica, I…”

Her hand slid into mine and I looked up—she was staring right at me. How fast was my heart beating? Could she see the sweat on my forehead? She squeezed my hand and leaned in, eyes closed, and I didn’t even have time to think. Suddenly, we were kissing.

That’s much better. When you’re editing, make sure you take into account the genre you’re writing and the tone you’re trying to achieve. Deleting stage directions without purpose can make your story feel lopsided.

actions in order

At the paragraph level, keeping your sentences linear seems to go without saying, but inside individual sentences, it’s easy to write actions out of order. Be on the hunt for these words: before, after, while, as, and when. If you see them, there’s a good chance you’ve strung together multiple actions that may be out of order (especially “before”!).

It’s surprisingly simple to reorder your sentences, and it makes it much easier for the reader to follow. If your actions are all over the place, it can be easy to get lost in what’s going on and when.

Here are a few examples:

He rummaged through his pockets before finding his cell phone and put in his password.

He rummaged through his pockets and found his cell phone, then put in his password.

When the alarm rang, she went to recess.

The alarm rang and she went to recess.

He balanced his plate on his head as he walked to the table.

He walked to the table with his plate balanced on his head.

What about show, don’t tell?

Good news: removing stage directions is a form of showing!

Although it seems like the opposite, stage directions don’t actually show us much about what’s going on—they only pretend to. But like everything in writing, you’re looking to strike a balance between too little description and too much.

For omniscient works or scenes in which you want narrative distance, some stage directions will do no harm. But if you’re writing in a close POV and you want to eliminate narrative distance, try to cut down on the stage directions. You can always replace them with internal dialogue if you need to slow down the pacing.