Whenever I teach about how to accept feedback from others regarding your work, I always say something along the lines of, “If it’s just one persons opinion, weigh that differently than if multiple critiquers are saying it to you.”

So a few months ago, when I noticed a pattern in the feedback I was receiving about different manuscripts, I knew it was time for me to pay attention.

A year ago, an editor I was working with said, “You have about four different themes going in this story. Let’s pick one and run with it.” I read back through the book, saw she was totally right, fixed it, and turned the book back in.

Then about six months ago, a different editor passed on a different manuscript of mine, saying she felt the story couldn’t quite find it’s identity. “It’s part romance, part mother/daughter story, part friendship story, and it’s diluting the story overall.” Again, I read through the book and definitely agreed with her.

Then two months ago, I turned in a manuscript to my agent and—believe it or not—her feedback was similar. “In the second half of the book, we lose the mystery thread and the book feels more like a coming-of-age novel for a while before we return to it feeling like a mystery.” I knew she was right even before I read back through the book.

Obviously, I have been repeatedly making the same mistake: In trying to make my book robust and complex, I instead make it convoluted. I try to make my stories about too many things.

While I don’t have much experience with preventing this problem in the first place (I’m working on that!) I’m now pretty good at fixing it during edits! Here are my thoughts on how to do that:

The Fix: Keep the main thing the main thing.

This sounds easy in principle, but it’s challenging when you’re in the manuscript. Especially if you’ve been in your manuscript for a while and you’re feeling a bit stuck. That’s when it’s extra easy to wander off on a plot bunny trail that feels fun for you (because it’s something different than the main thing) but doesn’t ultimately serve the story.

So, how do we know what serves the story and what doesn’t? It’s as simple (and challenging!) as this: Know and name what your story is really about.

Strategy 1: Identify your genre.

When my agent gave me the feedback about losing my mystery thread, I made a note to myself in all caps: THIS BOOK IS A MYSTERY! I stuck it on my revision notes so I would keep that in mind as I made changes. This may sound basic, and it may not be helpful for you, but I can’t say enough about how useful it was for me. That became my filter for if a scene got to stay or go. Was the scene about the mystery in some way? If not, it got cut. Because this book was a mystery.

Now, my book genre is actually Young Adult Historical Mystery. But “historical” just says something about when the book is set and “young adult” about who it’s for. I wasn’t having trouble remembering my intended audience or my setting, it was just the plot part of my genre—mystery—that I kept meandering away from.

What about a mashup genre like romantic suspense? This is a genre that is 100% romance and 100% suspense, not 50% romance and 50% suspense. That means with each scene you need to be moving forward both the romance plot and the suspense.

If your chosen genre says more about the setting (like fantasy or science fiction) than it does the plot, then you probably won’t find this tip as useful. When writing YA contemporaries, I have never, ever felt like it would benefit me to post on my desk that I was writing a YA contemporary.

Strategy 2: Write your premise in one sentence.

This repetitive issue of mine is yet another reminder to myself that writing my premise sentence isn’t just about pitching my story to my agent or telling readers what I’m working on, but it’s also useful for telling me what my story is about.

I really like this post of Jill’s with a formula on creating a premise sentence or logline. Shannon also wrote a good post on identifying your story problem, which is basically what I’m talking about here.

Similar to how writing “THIS BOOK IS A MYSTERY” on my notes became a filter for me, knowing what my book is really about makes it much easier to see what stays and what goes. If a scene doesn’t contribute to the story laid out in my sentence, then it doesn’t need to be in my book.

Strategy 3: Keep your focus on the main character(s)

Another way that our stories can become overgrown is by shining too much light on our other characters.

This is a complicated balance to strike because we want these other characters to have a life apart from our main character. That’s what makes the story feel real. But if we give too much attention to these other characters, the story can start to feel muddled. We can fall into the trap of going into deep backstories for these side characters because it’s interesting to us, but if it doesn’t contribute to the main story problem, then it really doesn’t belong.

Strategy 4: Identify the one—one—truth your main character needs to learn.

This is where I need the most help, as multiple editors have pointed out to me. I tend to pick a theme . . . but then veer away from it during different parts of the story. So if my main character needs to learn how to make choices for herself, I have that . . . but then I also throw in things like this:

• When she’s with her friends, she realizes she needs to learn how to speak up for herself.
• When she’s with the boy she likes, she realizes that she always changes how she presents herself so she’ll be more likable to him. She wishes she could be more confident in who she is.
• When she’s with her mom, she sees how her mom can’t get over the pain of her father’s betrayal. She never wants to let herself trust somebody like that, lest she get hurt like her mom did.

See how I’m swerving all over the place? This is normal during a first draft as we’re discovering what the story is about, but ultimately the story is strongest when we pick a theme and let it permeate the whole book. We do this by exploring the same theme from all different angles.

So, let’s say I stick with the theme of, “You are responsible for your own choices.” That could look like this:

• When with her friends, my main character is pressured into doing things she doesn’t want to do. Maybe one girl speaks up and says she doesn’t want to do whatever-it-is and she’s ostracized from the group. My main character is learning that it’s dangerous to make different choices than those the group makes. I can still have her learn to speak up for herself, but it needs to be in the context of making a choice and taking responsibility for it.
• When she’s with the boy she likes, instead of focusing on “I’m not confident enough to be myself around him,” I need to focus on, “I am choosing to present myself in this false way instead of choosing to be who I really am.”
• With her mom, she could see how her father’s choice is impacting both of them. Even though we’re responsible for our own choices, other people’s choices frequently impact us too. How do we handle that?

Think of representing theme in your story like playing a guitar. You don’t want to keep plucking the same string over and over. Instead, you want one part of the story to pluck one string, and another to pluck a different string, another to maybe strum two strings at the same time, and so forth.

One of the fun and challenging things about writing is that there is always more we can be working on! What’s something you’ve learned recently about writing?

Stephanie Morrill writes books about girls who are on an adventure to discover their unique place in the world. She is the author of several contemporary young adult series, as well as two historical young adult novels, The Lost Girl of Astor Street and Within These Lines. Within These Lines was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection, as well as a YALSA 2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults pick. Since 2010, Stephanie has been encouraging the next generation of writers at her website, GoTeenWriters.com, which has been on the Writer’s Digest Best Websites for Writers list since 2017. She lives in the Kansas City area, where she loves plotting big and small adventures to enjoy with her husband and three children. You can connect with Stephanie and learn more about her books at StephanieMorrill.com, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.