Last night I nearly ruined dinner. It’s just the two of us here these days, so when I buy a pre-roasted chicken, I get the initial meal, tomorrow’s lunch, and then soup for the next night. Yesterday was the soup night, commensurate with (yet another) bone-chilling downpour, potentially perfect for the chicken soup.
Kirk and I did a divide-and-conquer prep. Into the pot of water went the roasted poultry, celery, onions, potatoes and carrots. Salt. Herbs. Bay leaves. We decided to toss the carcass in the garbage to avoid the whole fat-skimming, picking little cartilage chunks out of the stock thing. Plus, we were too hungry to wait out the boiling down of the bones.
Thirty minutes in, still bland as fuck. Kirk took his chips and salsa appetizer down the NBA playoff viewing room, while I raided the fridge for ingredients to jazz up the soup. I started with the remains of some piri piri sauce we got hooked on during our recent trip to Portugal. Still bland. So I reamed out a jar of green Thai curry paste (about 2 Tablespoons worth), and cavalierly stirred it in.
Oops.
Seems I’d turned my dinner into a culinary firepit, so I glugged in some white wine vinegar, rendering the soup bland, spicy and sour all at once. Shit, shit, shit.
I spooned in a half cup of sugar.
The soup was getting worse by the minute.
(Reader: I have a whole bachelor’s degree in home ec. How am I still so clueless?)
There was nothing to do but ladle out most of the liquid and pour it down the drain. I managed to locate a quart of chicken broth in our Marie Kondo fail pantry, along with two cans of diced tomatoes. And it was still spicy! (Did you catch the Very Hungry Caterpillar vibe in that last sentence?)
I added more salt and walked away from the stove.
A half hour later, a miracle occurred. The solid ingredients had absorbed the remaining herbs and spices, and the tomatoes mellowed out the broth, and somehow, the soup had simmered its way to delicious1.
Now, aside from the “don’t try this at home” warning, this anecdote is an obvious corollary to the dreaded info dump writers often navigate between drafts.
That said, in your first draft, shoving too much information into your narrative is typical and expected. Some writers avoid this by using software like Scrivener and Scapple, where they can store long notes of exposition and background info. I’ve tried software and I’m not a good candidate, addicted as I am to the imperfect medium known as Microsoft Word, through which I rely on my own method of shitting out the lump of coal: the zero+ draft.
The zero+ draft2 is an organizing principle, wherein you get the broad strokes down, being mindful of character cause-and-effect, disruptions, motivation and arcs. It doesn’t have to follow a chronology and can be loaded with backstory and context that will be folded in seamlessly down the road. The goal is to codify your characters’ fear and desire trajectory by plunking them in scenes, and setting up conflicts. It’s also a way to get you psyched for the game ahead without getting bogged down in granularity. With this spare bones draft, the hope is you’ll create a neural pathway for the story you want to tell.
After you swashbuckle your way through your zero+ draft, step away from the stove. For a couple weeks—or even a month—in order to give your ingredients enough time to coalesce in your psyche. Attend to the curiosities that come up during this time via ye olde notebook (or iPhone notes), but try to avoid rewriting your actual draft during this time of abstinence. In this way, your brain carries the magic of bay leaves.
What I have found using this method of story planning is that an intuitive talent for story development takes hold. Once you return to your manuscript, your fresh eyes partners with the neural pathway you’ve built and is better able to identify extraneous information.
I realize this sounds a bit la-de-da faeries and rainbows, and you are right to be skeptical of advice that isn’t based in verified case studies—and I also realize that you might be at a stage where you need more guidance to pull this off. If so, take a look at my services page—scroll down to the DRIP method at the bottom of the page.
Meanwhile, I’m having chicken soup for dinner again tonight. Will this rain every stop?
The bay leaves I dropped in at the onset eventually performed their bay leaf magic (so mysterious, the woo woo in those leaves).
This is my version of the concept. I add a + to my version because, unlike with my pantry, I do require a modicum of order in my writing projects. I have called this early effort a “discovery” draft in the past, but I now prefer zero+ for its resemblance to a diet soft drink. There are other approaches to the zero draft, of course. Feel free to google it.
I LOVE your soup anecdote! That was fun to read. I wish all writing had your chill tone. It was like reading a text message from a cool friend. Love that vibe.
"Thirty minutes in, still bland as fuck." <--- That could describe...so much.
And "simmered its way to delicious" is such a juicy line!
I laughed at "Marie Kondo fail pantry." You're going for minimalism but hey...those snacks though. Am I right??