Be Careful Writing About The Things You Love Most

Heads up historical fiction writers…

One of my friends is an amateur ornithologist, with a special interest in the nest-building habits of native birds. A few days ago, he was telling me about a certain kind of bird in the U.K. that builds intricate nests woven together of sticks and fibers. The bird creates a fabric basket, but it’s a delicate balance. One twig out of place, or not enough fiber, and the whole thing falls apart in the rain.

It rather reminded me of writing. Specifically, the balance authors have to strike in writing about the things we love.

Writers are passionate people. When we write about the things that coincide with our special interests, we tend to go deep. Our texts swell with that passion, but that’s not always a good thing. There is such a reality as “too much”. Our books can collapse under the weight of our passion for topics before they’ve even had a chance to live.

That’s the problem I ran into during the process of getting my first manuscript published. It was a novel about Anne Boleyn. By the time I finished my second draft, I was sitting at a whopping 145K words. It was a heavy tome of dialogue and detail, diving deep into every major (and minor) aspect of the doomed queen’s life from courtship to execution.

It was too much.

Every agent who looked at it, every editor, told me I needed to cut it down. “This reads like a textbook,” one of them told me. “Work your pacing. Too much detail.” I struggled. Cut it down? Every single detail was crucially important, I told myself. You needed those details to get the full picture at the end.

The trap snapped shut around me. I had committed one of the greatest unnamed sins as a writer pursuing commercial success. I wrote about something I loved too much.

The danger of writing about the things you love most.

I was surprised when I learned about the trap. It had never made sense to me before. In my mind, you write about the things you love so that you can write about them better. That’s what I had always imagined as a kid, when I fantasized about writing novels set in Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. I wanted to set my stories in those times and explore the lives of those people, but that was the trap.

There’s a real danger of getting too wrapped up when you write about the things you love. You want to communicate your passion through the story, you want to immerse your readers in your imagination, but there is a line.

Getting too detailed

Believe it or not, there is such a thing as having too much detail in your novels. Just ask anyone who has DNFd a George R.R. Martin novel. When you pile heaps and heaps of detail into your story, it certainly displays your passion and intellect, but it also risks “swamping” your story.

What is swamping? In the simplest terms, it’s muddying up the waters of your narrative. When you pile too much detail into your story, you thicken the chapters, you make them dense, impenetrable, tangled.

Readers get lost trying to remember too many names, who did what, when, and where. It blurs the important dramatics that you’re trying to capture their attention with. Worse, it can slow down your pacing and pull your reader entirely out of the story (and into a history lecture instead).

Losing the drama

Losing the drama in a story is probably one of the biggest sins an author can commit. That’s the whole point of what you’re doing. You’re not writing a book. You’re setting the stage. You’re transporting your reader to another time and the depths of your imagination. They aren’t there to “hang out”. They are there for dramatics.

They want conflict. They want heroes and villains. They want blood, gore, triumph, defeat, war, love, passion, loss. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing historical fiction or high fantasy. If you lose sight of dramatics, you’re losing your reader’s attention.

That’s one of the dangers of writing about the things you’re passionate about. If you’ve swamped your story in details, or are digging into the minutiae of a specific event, you risk losing pacing.

You think that every little conversation your character has is important. You want to display all their thoughts to the reader, but that’s not necessary. It slows things down, pulls your hero away from their conquest, and makes the reader want to fall asleep or put the book down.

Cradled and precious

When passionate writers sit down and start painting their imagined worlds, they’re often focused on what excites them. Their hearts pump as they bring their main characters to life. They smile as they envision sharing this place they love so much with others, who they believe will fall in love with that time or that world just as much as they have.

Unfortunately, this love for what they’re creating makes this type of writer tragically unprepared for what comes next. Criticism.

That’s, perhaps, the biggest emotional risk of writing about the topics and periods you love most. When you’ve spent time loving and learning about something, it hurts twice as much when you find out that other people don’t love it as much as you do.

If you love what you write too much, it can become too precious to you. Like Gollum struggling to let go of the ring, you can have a hard time letting go of fluff. You may struggle to edit ruthlessly and have an even harder time taking the criticism that comes with putting your work out into the world.

Should we stop writing about the things we’re most passionate about?

It’s a fine line to walk when you’re writing about the topics you’re most passionate about. The balance is undeniable. How do you communicate all the things you love about your story without getting lost in that love? Not everyone has the talent or drive to find that balance in the books they write, the stories they tell.

Does that mean that you shouldn’t write about the things you’re passionate about? No! Of course not.

We need more writers out there who are willing to share the stories they love. We need more authors and playwrights who can communicate the excitement and joy they feel in the characters they craft, and the worlds they build.

You should always write about the things you’re passionate about. What’s important is awareness. Be aware of where the line is and learn to let go of the minor, unnecessary details. Become an editing warrior. Learn to release the emotional strings if you’re someone seeking commercial success.

Now, commercial success may not be your goal. That’s okay, too! If your story is too precious to you, don’t put it out into the world. Keep it close. Don’t worry about sharing it with people who may not love you as much as you love it. Keep those stories for yourself and your loved ones. They don’t need a stage, they just need you to tell them.

Here’s the real rub of everything I’ve just told you. All of it is true…and not true. While you have to be careful in writing about the things you’re passionate about, you certainly don’t have to run from it entirely. The secret is balance. Finding your place between detail, sensitivity, and the ultimate goals you have for your story.

Do you want to share a story about a historical time you love? Do you want the world to see it, know it, and love it as much as you do? Then be cautious. Don’t bog your reader down with details. Don’t worry about pouring every personality, every experience, every inch of dialogue into the important dramatic moments.

Remember, it’s not always about the acclaim. It’s not always about a big publishing dream or an audience of hungry readers. Sometimes, telling our stories is a matter of the journey. Of creating something that’s entirely our own and seeing it through from start to finish.

Write what you want. Write what you love. Write what your heart desires.

© E.B. Johnson 2024

I am a writer, artist, NLPMP, and podcaster who helps people build creative lives after trauma. In my free time, I have a passion for fresh bread, history, and all things watercolor. Learn more about me here. Join my mailing list. Or, support my writing by subscribing below.