What Not To Write: A Schitt’s-Creek-David-Gif-Inspired Guide.

Much-acclaimed sitcom Schitt’s Creek may have come to an end recently, but the wisdom of character David Rose lives on. He’s opinionated and outspoken, traits that are just right for calling us writers out on our bad habits. Let’s take a look at five instances where David’s memorable reactions were a perfect match for our writing offenses.

1. That time we hoped a reader didn’t notice something we happened to drop in there.

Readers are savvy. Whether we’ve written in something that isn’t feasible, isn’t set up, or a plot twist that conveniently appears to save the day, it’s not enough to *hope* a reader accepts something or simply doesn’t notice. We owe it to readers to bring logic to our plots. They should be able to look back and see that we’ve carefully laid out everything we include, starting on the opening page. 

2. That time we included way too many characters and way too much backstory in early pages.

Sure, we need a hook in our opening scenes that ensures our readers keep turning pages. But we should pace ourselves and allow readers to get their bearings and bond with our beloved characters. There’s no need for readers to meet every single character right away. There’s no need to sift through all of our protagonists’ suitcases, at least not right away. 

3. That time our narrator wouldn’t shut up.

We’ve all suffered from chatty-narrator syndrome. Who hasn’t had a narrator who interrupts scenes constantly to talk to the reader and explain what they’re thinking or feeling? This can be a signal that dialogue and action in a given scene are weak. Instead, we must maximize strongly-written dialogue and purposeful physical action. If we limit our narrative interruptions, we give readers space to form their own opinions and feel emotions for themselves. 

4. That time we included a scene where nothing really happens.

Our characters waking up, getting dressed, heading to school, eating a meal, going to their lockers, thinking way too much… The list of throwaway “scenes” goes on and on. It’s not enough to include something because chronologically, it happens next. If we’ve written what we think is a scene but nothing purposeful happens, we must compress time and skip it. Every scene must pull its weight and have a solid purpose. Or we risk our readers asking themselves what actually happened in a given scene as their minds drift elsewhere.

5. That time we frustrated our readers by stalling.

There’s no doubt creating obstacles for our protagonists is hard work. Equally hard is harming the character we know and love. But if we expect our readers to wait while our characters sit on a secret, find yet another excuse not to act, do the same action repeatedly to try to solve their problem, or put their heads in the sand and avoid the conflict, then we risk frustrating our readers. These writerly acts conjure up dread in our readers because they are waiting to see what our protagonists can do. Once our protagonists commit to squaring off with our antagonists, we must create new and different ways for the protagonist to act all the way to the finish line.

David has spoken! And anyone with style like his deserves to be heard. Now, let’s dig into our WIPs and see which bad habits we might identify and revise!

Marissa is a freelance editor and writer. She attempts to put words on a page daily, but her dogs think entertaining and worshipping them are a better use of her time. Marissa is available for editing or author coaching and loves crawling inside her clients’ heads so they can become their own editors. Find out more about Marissa here.