Have you ever wondered if you’re trying to cram too much into one story? See how one sci-fi author can determine what should be in his current work-in-progress and what he should save for another book.

October’s author is Michael Bone. He’s writing a science fiction novel about:

A disgraced scientist is driven to build advanced learning technology he calls ‘the memory machine’ by any means necessary.

Michael says his goal for the novel is to:

Inspire inventors to invent the invention in the story.

In terms of what he’d like help with, Michael says his biggest challenge is:

Making everything I want to fit, fit. I think I may be doing too much.

Today we’re going to explore how to nudge readers toward having a particular response to your story and how to determine what goes in this story and what you should leave out when you want to convey a specific message to your readers. We’ll start by reviewing the different types of messages authors can give to their readers.

Messages authors can give to readers

Most good novels can be boiled down to one central idea or message that’s defined by the plot type the novel uses. Great novels often add a second central message or idea that’s more universal and is sometimes called ‘theme’. Let’s start with the plot-based messages.

Plot-based messages are predictable. You can express them in a standard format. Here’s the format for three popular plot types you can consider in a sci-fi novel:

Action plots: Good triumphs over evil when the protagonist sacrifices [self or something they dearly want] to stop the villain.
Mystery plots: Justice prevails when the protagonist outwits the criminal [by using specific skills] and brings them to justice.
Romance plots: Love conquers all when [Hero1 overcomes difficult challenge] and [Hero2 overcomes difficult challenge].

I gave the standard formats for novels with happy endings above, because they are the most common. If you’d like to write a tragic or ambiguous ending, you’d just tweak the sentences above to reflect what happens in your plot.

But you don’t need to limit yourself to a message based on your plot. You can make a weighty moral argument, deliver a positive, reassuring message, or try to inspire readers to a particular action.

In terms of moral arguments, Michael Crichton’s books, like Jurassic Park, often convey the message, “Don’t f–-- with nature.” Suzanne Collins said she wrote The Hunger Games to make a case for when citizens have a moral right to wage war. When children are forced to slaughter each other for entertainment, it seems pretty reasonable that the citizens of Panem take up arms against their corrupt government!

Delivering a positive, reassuring message is the type of message most frequently used by authors in popular genres. Here are some examples of positive messages editing clients I’ve worked with have used:

“All people are valuable, including those who are sick and elderly.”
“Women have a right to tell their own stories.”
“What actions you take matter, because everyone has a role to play in making a difference.”

Finally, the most challenging type of message an author can shoot for is to encourage readers to a particular action. This is a legitimate, but rare goal. I don’t know of any novels that achieve this in genre fiction, but we can learn some things from a literary fiction example. Upton Sinclair wrote his 1906 novel The Jungle to raise awareness of the terrible conditions for workers in meatpacking plants and promote socialism as the answer.

Sinclair was remarkably successful at the first goal. The public was so horrified by his exposé that new federal food safety laws were passed. Sinclair failed at his second goal to promote socialism and, considering how he framed his arguments in the book, that’s not surprising.

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How to inspire readers to take action (and what not to do)

Since this month’s author wants to inspire action, let’s explore why The Jungle is a good example of both what writers should do and what they should NOT do to inspire a particular response.

Most of Sinclair’s novel follows an employee at a meatpacking plant through his daily life. Nowhere in the novel does anyone say, “The meatpacking plants are horrible! They treat workers like slaves!” It just shows the typical struggles that a worker and his family face and lets readers decide for themselves what to think.

By contrast, Sinclair’s argument for why socialism is the answer to fixing the meatpacking industry is a pages long manifesto poorly disguised as a conversation between friends, which tells readers exactly what they should think. Readers hate it when authors tell them what they should think. But if it seems like there’s a secret message hidden in the story, authors can subtly sway the audience, while letting each reader feel like they made the choice to change their opinions on their own.

The possibilities for creating a broader message—whether it’s a cautionary tale, an uplifting message, or a call to action—are infinite. But they aren’t an excuse to slack on the plot-based message. It takes very disciplined storytelling to hit the marks to convey both the plot-based and broader message through one story.

Let’s go back to Michael’s story and identify his plot-based and broader messages so we’ll be ready to evaluate his plot.

What’s Michael’s plot-based takeaway?

Here’s how Michael describes his plot:

A disgraced scientist does not want to wait for the slow FDA regulatory process, so develops the invention underground. With the help of YouTube, he builds a fanbase, which is shut down after a woman dies after using what she ‘learned.’ The superintendent takes him to court where it is revealed that the superintendent is the one who built the machine. He transferred his memories to the protagonist.

And the villain:

The superintendent of public instruction wants to hold on to public education because he believes controlling education controls the people. The protagonist and his memory machine are a threat to that.

My hunch is that this is probably an action plot. Action plots are all about stopping the threat posed by the villain. If the villain gets their way, terrible things will happen. Unless the memory machine can help catch criminals, in which case this might be a mystery plot. But my money is on action.

So the choices for Michael’s novel are:

Action plots: Good triumphs over evil when the protagonist sacrifices [self or something they dearly want] to stop the villain.
Mystery plots: Justice prevails when the protagonist outwits the criminal [by using specific skills] and brings them to justice.

We don’t know yet what the protagonist sacrifices if it’s an action plot, or what specific skills the protagonist will use if it’s a mystery. Filling in those details will be one of Michael’s next steps. But we can use the generic version to help us evaluate the plot. For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to assume that Michael’s got an action plot for the rest of this post.

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What’s the broader message?

Michael wants to inspire inventors to invent a memory machine. What we need to know is what Michael’s argument is for why this machine is so necessary. What is humanity losing without having this invention? Is the problem that:

We aren’t innovating fast enough to save the planet from climate change.
It’s impossible for scientists to truly master a field within a lifetime, which means medical innovation isn’t going fast enough and people die unnecessarily.
The government doesn’t have enough money to educate all the children and extremists are taking advantage. They’re radicalizing young people and training them to commit acts of violence.
Or is it something else?

Basically, what kind of difference could this invention make? I gave many possible reasons above, but Michael should only choose one. Then, he’ll tie the conflict the protagonist faces in the novel to the reason chosen. Because the goal is to inspire inventors, the plot should show the potential positive impact the memory machine could have or the cost of not having one.

Tightening up Michael’s plot.

To recap, we’re assuming Michael’s novel has:

An action plot which has a plot-based takeaway of the form: Good triumphs over evil when the protagonist sacrifices [self or something they dearly want] to stop the villain.
A broader message about why the world needs the memory machine. We don’t know exactly what this message is yet. But we know that it’s going to make the memory machine look essential.

The events of the plot need to support both messages.

What we know about the plot:

Protagonist faces frustrating FDA process
Woman gets killed
Protagonist is taken to court by the villain
It turns out that the villain built the memory machine

Let’s take each of these in turn and evaluate whether they support the plot-based and the broader message.

Protagonist faces frustrating FDA process - Right now, I’m uncertain about whether this belongs in the novel, because I’m not sure how it supports either message. If it stays, it could use some tweaks. To help support the plot-based message, revisions might show how the FDA process is related to what the villain wants, or how the FDA is making it more difficult for the protagonist to stop the villain and save the victims. For the broader message, revisions might show how the FDA’s process is harming the world.

Woman gets killed - This is definitely something I expect in an action plot, so it supports the first message. At the moment, I’m uncertain how the woman’s death supports the need for the memory machine. Maybe it’s because of who she is or what she represents? This should stay, but I’d like to see more information about who this woman is and what her death means for the development of the memory machine.

Protagonist is taken to court by the villain - Sometimes courts play a role in an action plot, but I’m uncertain if legal action is the biggest threat that the villain poses. I would guess that it probably isn’t. Action plots are life and death struggles. Regarding the broader message, I’m not sure how the court battle would support the need for the memory machine. It’s possible that Michael could tweak this section to support both messages. Or he could cut and replace it.

It turns out that the villain built the memory machine - This could support the plot-based message, if making the protagonist look like the inventor of the memory machine helps the villain get what he wants. In terms of the broader message, if the memory machine is something that the villain created, then is the memory machine bad? If it’s bad, then it seems unlikely that inventors will want to create it.

If Michael does cut or shorten any of these sections of his plot, he will probably need to brainstorm some new ideas.

Brainstorming new ideas for an action plot

It might surprise you to see a section for brainstorming new ideas when Michael’s main concern was about trying to do too much. It’s actually very common for authors to need to both cut and expand different sections of their novel. When you cut or shorten sections that weren’t supporting the plot-based or broader message, you have room to stretch out the parts of the novel that align with the messages you want to convey.

An action story is about stopping a villain from putting an evil plan into action and saving the victims—the characters who’d be harmed if the villain got what he wants. The plot comes from the interaction between the villain (and other antagonists) trying to get what they want and the protagonist trying to stop them. To expand, we need to know more about the main villain and the other antagonists in the story.

For the main villain, we know the villain wants to control education, but there isn’t a specific end goal that represents “winning” for the villain. Does he need to control education to create an army and stage a revolution against the government? Perhaps controlling education will help him build a financial empire that will allow him to win the heart of the woman who dumped him when he was poor? Or maybe he needs to control education to get revenge on a boss who took credit for his work early in his career? Having a more specific endpoint can help readers understand why it’s so important for the villain to be stopped and infer what steps the villain may take, even when those steps happen off the page.

Similarly, we want to know what all the other antagonists in the novel want. What specific outcome are they hoping for and what’s their plan of action for getting what they want? A good practice is to make a list of all the antagonists, including the main villain, what they want, and their plan for getting what they want. (There’s an example of how to create this kind of list in the Designing Villains & Antagonists lesson in this workshop. And another lesson on how to use the list to develop your plot.) Once you’ve got your list, you can explore different ways of playing the antagonists off of each other to create obstacles for the protagonist that will keep your readers turning pages.

In Michael’s story, I’d like to know more about the woman who gets killed. Did the protagonist know her? Are there characters who are trying to hide the circumstances of her death? Were there several characters who had motives to kill the woman? Anyone with a motive is a potential antagonist who might make it harder for the hero to stop the villain.

Next steps for Michael

I’d recommend three steps next to Michael.

First, confirm the plot type and make the plot-based takeaway more specific. If it’s an action plot, what does the main villain want? What are the consequences of the villain getting what he wants? Who gets hurt? What will the protagonist need to sacrifice to stop the villain?

If it’s a mystery, what’s the criminal’s motive for killing the victim(s)? What skills or special knowledge will the protagonist use to outwit the criminal?

Second, clarify the broader message. Why does the world need the memory machine? Turn it into a simple sentence about values. Such as

When students can direct their own learning, democracy flourishes.
When there are fewer scientists available to study emerging diseases, people die from preventable illnesses.
If extremists control education, they will turn children into soldiers.

The “When/If ____, then ___” format used above can be a helpful way to frame the broader message. Your broader message doesn’t need to be clever. The priority is making it clear so that you don’t need to explicitly write it in the novel. Readers will infer your message from the actions of the characters.

Third, revisit the plot. If the events in the plot don’t support both the plot-based and the broader message, they should be revised or replaced. To help with the revisions and expansion, make a list of all the antagonists. Identify a specific outcome that the main villain wants, his plan for getting what he wants, and the consequences of the villain “winning”. In other words, who is harmed?

Additionally, what other obstacles will the protagonist face that will make it more difficult to stop the villain? Does the villain have henchmen? Or maybe enemies or rivals? Are there challenges in the protagonist’s personal or professional life that create obstacles to stopping the villain? Perhaps a disapproving family member, a jealous lover, a tough boss, or a professional rival? What do each of these additional antagonists want and how will they make it more difficult for the protagonist to stop the main villain’s plans?

When all the events in the plot support both the plot-based message and the broader message, you have a much better chance of eliciting the response you want from your readers.

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