How to Not Ruin Your Novel: The Phenomenon of Premature Optimization
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Episode Transcript
In today's episode, I want to talk about a misunderstanding that I entertained for many years and that I still see occurring in writer communities all the time. This fundamental misunderstanding is the assumption on which writer workshops are built, it’s the assumption people make when they write 10 or 20 pages of their book and hand them to someone else to read, and it’s the assumption that most often leads to people either not finishing their books or writing books by committee that they never wanted to write in the first place. What is it?
Premature Optimization
The phenomenon, which is a term from the field of computer science, is called "premature optimization." As soon as I learned about it, a lightbulb went off in my head because I realized that it doesn’t just apply to coders. It applies so well to us writers.
Premature optimization can be captured by a Google product from 2009 that you probably don't remember because it was a total flop. Google Wave.
The Google folks looked at email in 2009 and were like, “this is so outdated, let’s reinvent communication!" So they created these living documents called "waves" that were sort like if Google Docs and email had a baby: you could watch someone typing a message to you and respond before they were even finished.
Google built this incredibly sophisticated system with all these advanced features, spending an estimated $100 million dollars on it. But then it launched and…no one wanted it.
Google Wave is now an example of engineers building something technically amazing that solved a problem most people didn't know they had…and therefore didn’t care about. Email was working just fine for most of us. It’s 16 years later and you know what’s still alive and well? Email.
Premature optimization is when someone gets wrapped up in optimizing or perfecting a particular feature of a product without making sure that the underlying concept works. It’s tweaking the little things and ignoring the big thing.
Google Wave isn’t the only case study of this. Based on my research, it happens fairly often in software and app development, because coding teams will devote huge amounts of time to things like ensuring a product can scale before they even know if anyone is going to buy it in the first place. So while they're over there spending hours and hours making sure that 4 million people can use it at the same time, it turns out that there aren't even 400 people who want to use it.
Why this matters for novelists
Premature optimization when it comes to writing a novel entails over-focusing on the writing itself at the expense of story when you are working on your first draft.
Here’s why this is dangerous. The most important thing about your book is that the story is good. If you're writing a novel, this is true 100% of the time. Does the writing need to be good as well? Yes.
But no matter how good the writing is, if the story isn't there, your book isn't going to sell. And I don't mean it's not going to sell to readers; it's not even going to make it through the starting gate. It's not going to sell to publishers.
When I say story, I mean the plot. We can use those terms interchangeably.
And if you’re sitting there thinking, “But I’m writing high-concept literary fiction, I don’t need a plot,” I have an upcoming podcast episode you’ll want to listen to on that, but for now, I’ll just say that sure, maybe that’s you. But if that’s you, you are in the .001%, and that’s an incredibly challenging place to be to get a book deal, and I invite you to examine what biases you hold against plot and why that might be. Could it be because it’s hard to write, or could it be due to internalized classism?
Anyway, back to the topic for today.
Examples of editor rejections
To illustrate the importance of story, I want you to see a few examples of rejections that were received from editors by a friend whose book was on submission recently, meaning her agent had sent it out to editors at publishing houses.
One editor at a “Big 5” publishing house said this:
Thank you so much for sending _________ my way. This is such a fabulous title, first of all, and _______ is indeed an impressive writer. While I really enjoyed the setting and character development, I found the plot lacked a little momentum.
Another senior editor at another “Big 5”:
I hope this finds you well! Thank you again for sending _________ my way. ________ has crafted an engaging and delightfully messy protagonist. I found the voice both endearing and entertaining, pulling me right into the heart of her world. That said, while I enjoyed the read, I did find myself struggling with the pacing of the manuscript.
Finally, an executive editor at yet another “Big 5” said:
Thanks so much again for sending ________ my way. _______ does a terrific job of bringing this town and community to life, and the balance of humor and poignancy here is really lovely. But I'm afraid the story just didn't quite pull me in and surprise me in a way that would convince me I'd be able to break this out as it deserves.
Notice how complimentary these editors were of my friend’s writing itself. They loved it! I actually cut more text in which they sang her praises as a writer because they were just too long to read.
But the fantastic writing wasn’t enough: the editors were looking for story.
What your novel needs more than good writing
There is a reason that whenever I teach, and certainly in The Book Incubator™, which is the program I run, I emphasize so heavily that a first draft is about the story, not the writing. If the story is not there, the writing might as well not exist. You will just have to do it over. If the story is there, the writing that’s there can be improved upon. It can be deepened, punched up, polished, whatever it may need. Writing can be improved upon. This is why people are literally hired in Hollywood to punch up scripts.
Writing is fixable. Story is foundational.
Fixing story is, indeed, like getting the foundation of your house worked on. You are not going to be able to live there while it's happening. My sister recently had the foundation of her house worked on and it nearly did her in. Her yard looked like a tornado had come through.
Fixing the writing, however, is like a hefty paint job or putting in some custom cabinets. It may not be a walk in the park, but you don't have to move into a hotel and take out a second mortgage.
Now, what I’m saying is true within reason, right? You need to have a basic facility with the English language; you need to be able to write a sentence. I'm assuming we all know this as common sense. I'm not trying to argue that someone who doesn't know how to write a decent sentence can write a great book and it won't be hard to improve their writing.
But what I'm saying is that, if you can write a decent sentence, then when you're working on a first draft, you don't actually want to be thinking about the writing itself. That's like putting up the curtains before you have floors.
This also means that you don't need to be sharing your writing with people to get their feedback on it, which is why I am so against feedback-based writing classes and why they derailed me for years. It's impossible to participate in one of those without winding up writing your book by committee, and books written by committee are not good books. I know I'm coming in hot here with the opinions, but at this point, I've held them so long that they've become rigid! At least I’m direct, right?
When you are writing a first draft, you want to make sure the story is there; you are not worrying about the writing itself.
How do you make sure the story is there?
In next week’s episode, where I’ll be talking about how plot is the opposite of low-brow, I’ll get into that—including my favorite free and easy strategy for nailing down your story that anyone can use no matter where you are or who you are. You don’t have to be in a writing class or even have writer friends.
But for now, I want to leave you with this idea of premature optimization and suggest that you be wary of it when it comes to your first draft.
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