What to Do When Your Story Becomes Too Complex

For the writer who suffers from too many ideas versus too little, let's review your options.

If you’re someone bursting with ideas, the endless possibilities can become overwhelming. On one hand, you can see all the paths your characters can take and the adventures they can go on that will make your story exhilarating. But on the other hand, even if you know what end you’re heading towards, with all the paths there are, it gets hard to determine which road will get you there.

You might also be afraid to choose one way for fear of shutting yourself off from other viable possibilities that you could’ve had access to, had you taken a different route. It’s hard to make a choice when you can’t see where it leads and there’s a risk of sacrificing better options.

One wrong step could have you walking down a path that leads to dead ends, loose plot strings floating in the air, or gaping plot holes next to your feet.

All your efforts could feel like they were wasted.

So you do the next sensible thing that anyone in your position would do. You don’t move. You stand still, looking out into the darkness at all the beautiful possibilities. You’re stuck in place, confused, and probably frustrated.

*Snaps Fingers*

Snap out of it. Don’t worry. When you’re stuck to the point of analysis paralysis because your story’s become overly complicated, I’m happy to report that you’ve got options.

Before you kick me (or, you know, throw something since you can’t seem to move your legs), allow me to elaborate. I know we just got done going over how your abundance of options is what’s keeping you from taking a step forward, but the options I’m talking about are the kind that actually help. Also, I’ll let you know how to choose the one that’s best for you.

Option #1 — Pick One, Backtrack

Choose a path, explore it, then if things go wrong, backtrack. Although this is the easiest option starting off, the amount of subsequent effort required if things go wrong can be discouraging. If a problem arises, you might need to go back and either painstakingly fix prior scenes or possibly discard good chunks of your work. This option could prove to be time-consuming in the long-run.

Option #2 — Pick One, Patch

Choose a path and if you fall into a hole, you can patch it up (i.e., think of a solution to dig yourself out). The risk with this method is that you could end up settling for a mediocre solution. Sometimes that’s the only one available for a particular path. Your story would then be weakened by the poor fix. It could lose its appeal and you might end up giving up on it altogether.

Option #3 — Make Decisions

STEP 1: Write Out All the Possibilities

When you’re first starting a story, ideas are what’s needed. They enrich your harrowing tales of dastardly deeds righted by now heroic, once average Joes. Ideas and quirky details are what make stories appear magical.

So when you’re first growing your story, it’s better to open yourself up to the multitude of ideas that arrive than to just hone in on one. That extra detail that you wouldn’t normally think of because you were so focused on getting to the end. Or the side adventure your character goes on that shows you a bit more of the world they live in and give you a better understanding of the reasons behind their actions.

Ideas are necessary, and this option caters to them. So don’t hold back. Write out each idea and think about how it affects or changes your story.

Use the font color black to represent events in the story that must happen and therefore are set in stone. Use a different font color for anything that’s fluid or can be changed. If you can use one color per idea without it getting confusing, do it. (Tip: Group ideas that don’t conflict with each other into one color.)

STEP 2: Get Everything to Black

The point of the game is to get everything to black. The steps and rules to get you there:

1. Rule: Anything in black cannot be changed unless absolutely necessary (i.e., the changes enhance or clarify the story).
2. Choose what’s necessary. What are the scenes surrounding the black text that needs to happen for the black scenes to occur? Change these to black.
3. Choose what doesn’t impact the black. If none of the colored scenes are needed for the black ones to occur, which ones can happen without affecting the scenes in black? Bold these.
4. Choose the idea that’s most striking or if not, the easiest to weave in. Out of the bolded items (i.e., the ones that work with the scenes already set in stone), choose the most interesting one and set to black. If there are several that are equally interesting, choose the easiest to incorporate first.
5. Choose the most striking storyline that conflicts with the main story and resolve. If there are no bolded items (i.e., the items that work with the main story), choose the most interesting one that conflicts with the main story. Follow the idea through to the end of the story. Identify the points of contention. If the differences can be resolved, make adjustments and set the entire string to black. If not, go to the next interesting storyline and perform the same check.
6. Remove the rest. Delete (or set aside in another document) all the storylines/scenes that do not make the cut.

Option #4— Start at the End

STEP 1: Set Up the Tentpoles

Write out everything you know about the story. Then organize it into your preferred story structure (e.g., 3-act structure, the snowflake method, or the 7-point plot).

You don’t need to have all your plot points figured out, but the ending is important.

STEP 2: Figure Out Your Ending

Do whatever it takes to figure out your ending. Brainstorm, meander around, pace your room, eat a carrot, ask yourself questions. Where does the character end up? What do they want? Do they get it? What would drive the reader to keep reading until the end? What would they want to know? What do you want to know? What do you want to have happen? What is the point of your story? What do you want to come away with after having read it? And why does this carrot taste funny?

STEP 3: Work Backwards

Once you have the ending, you can work backward. The beginning will be the easiest to determine. It will be the opposite state of where your story ends. Now you can just connect the two ends.

1. The End. Where your characters end up. The point of your story. The nice little present at the end of your journey. The KAPOW.
2. The Realization. This happens right before the end. Your character realizes something about themselves that leads them to take the massive Hail Mary action at the end. What do they realize?
3. Cornered. But first, they need to be forced into that realization. Here, their friends and helpers are gone. They’re trapped and cornered. They’ve run out of all options. This is what would make them focus. What list of horrible things happen to them here?
4. The Decision. This is what they decided to do that resulted in all those horrible things happening. What was it?
5. A Bit of Conflict. The Big Baddy is introduced. Things go wrong here. The consequence of which is The Decision (i.e., the point above).
6. New Ideas. Something happens and they’re thrust into a new environment where they come across new things, people and ideas. It’s interesting and fun at first.
7. The Start. Their normal lives. The opposite of where they end up.

If that looks familiar, it is. It’s the 7-point method that worked backward.

Recommended: Option 4

Working backward saves time and effort. But it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s a potent strategy.

The other options allow you to be open to new ideas and free write. That makes the process more lighthearted and adventurous. But if you ever come across a large enough hiccup, it could potentially derail your work.

Having to make major changes halfway or even a quarter of the way through a story can make your efforts feel wasted. Although yes, granted that ultimately no words are ever really wasted. Every word counts towards practice. And practice is what strengthens your skills as a writer. But if you reach a point where you’re at a standstill because:

1. You’re afraid to take another step forward for fear of walking into a minefield or
2. You’re close to abandoning the project altogether because you don’t feel like you have what it takes to weed through all your notes on it

Then your best bet would be to go with option 4.

Work from your memory and start at the end. Work backwards to figure out the main string that runs through the entire story.

Then go back and work through the subplots that enhance the story. That make it more fun and draws the reader in a little bit further. Tie that subplot into and around the main plot. Then go to the next plot string and do the same, carefully weaving it into the first two. And so on.

With Option 4, you get to keep the magic of the story, with all its details, dohickeys and thingamabobs, while still ensuring it remains structurally sound and cohesive.

Conclusion

That being said, keep in mind that at the end of the day, if you still love what you’re writing, your main objective is to choose the option that best helps you to continue telling your story.