WHAT DOES IT MEAN to “TIGHTEN UP” and HOW DO I DO IT?

By Kasie Whitener

I’m bringing the second half of the second novel to group, one segment at a time. Like a serialized version in biweekly installments.

Consistent feedback at one group, for me and others, is “tighten up.” Last week one of our novice fiction writers candidly asked, “What does that mean and how do I do it?”

When our critique group says, “tighten up” I take it to mean I should make the scene less boring. The dialogue should be punchier, the action more impactful, the scene more tense. How do you make a so-so passage that meanders a little bit less boring?

Get rid of all the stuff that doesn’t belong.

Step 1: Reduce the details that don’t directly contribute to the action of the scene.

Sometimes those details are exposition, sometimes they’re scene setting like the lighting or furniture in the room. Whatever slows down the pace of the scene or distracts from the real action has got to go. How do you know? Take it out and read the scene without it. Do you miss it? Count how many details are about a person, remove half of them. How many are about the room? Remove half of those.

Step 2: Read the dialogue out loud. Just the dialogue.

If it bores you, it bores us. Tightening up dialogue means the characters only have to say what matters to the story. We can assume they greeted one another upon arrival, so dispense with the “Hi, how are you?”s. Strong writers use dialogue to advance the plot. Accusations, denials, confessions, and pleas get dialogue. Instructions (“Put that down.”) and procedural stuff (“I made lunch.”) don’t deserve dialogue. Give them gestures. Or better yet, assume we know they exist and cut them all together.

Step 3: Read each sentence word-by-word and cut any extra words.

Being succinct is an easy way to add tension to a scene. Read each sentence and consider what the real action should be. We sometimes combine two unrelated actions into the same sentence. Decide which one stays and which one gets cut. We sometimes give full driver’s license descriptions (hair color, eye color, height, weight) when only one feature matters. Pick one. Tightening up is about getting rid of the excess line-by-line.

Tightening work can also mean “kill your darlings” those clever turns of phrase you think demonstrate your quality as a writer. But mostly it means focus the passage on what matters to the story. It may require that you re-evaluate what the scene means to the novel. The hard work of writing is revision.

When I’m told “tighten up” I think my readers lost focus somewhere. I don’t want that. I want them spellbound by every single word. So only use the good words. Stream of consciousness may have worked for Mrs. Dalloway but Ulysses proved it’s unsustainable. Novice writers get better when they cut the excess and focus on the story.