That catchy little title is a favorite phrase used by editors in various other forms such as “If it doesn’t advance the story, what’s it doing there?” Well, it’s an ambiguous question and another of the many, seemingly endless, “rules” for guiding writers along in their creation of novels. Frankly, I like it about as much as I like the “conflict on every page” fiasco. Maybe less.
A storyteller knows there must be a problem, a conflict, and/or tension to carry a plot. Genre dictates how much and how deep and how it’s presented. Peripheral characters provide all kinds of nuances for a story, some vague, some critical, some for misdirection, some for pure entertainment.
Once again let me give this disclaimer: the rules hold value and serve a purpose in teaching the basics for those who are picking up their pencils or exercising their keyboards and learning the objectives of telling a story. But the rules don’t teach variety or voice, vision or vivacity. Rules must be learned in order to effectively break them. Sticking religiously to the rules is the bane of creativity because not all rules translate effectively into making a good and stylish story.
Opinions on what truly “takes away from the story” are as varied as the stories themselves. It could be said that Dean Koontz does this frequently—heads off on little independent creative jags with characters and occurrences which take the reader away from the direct storyline and interject it with quizzical characters and circumstances that seem like rambling until down the line these unique people and situations intersect. Now it could be argued these are essential to the story . . . eventually. But the opposite could be argued as well depending on your view of what’s important to a particular story.
I just read Tom Clancy’s 950 page Dead or Alive. Apparently his editors didn’t think any of those hundreds of thousands of words weren’t necessary to his story.
It boils down to opinion. The concern seems to be that gushing prose provides mere pleasure for the author and not necessarily the reader which of course can be true. However, what might bother one reader—or one editor—delights another. Unrelated tangents by an author can read whimsically or irritate impatient readers. And not just impatient readers to be fair. If a target reader decides a passage is irrelevant and wonders why it’s there, the author has missed his mark with it. How critical the results of that failure are probably can’t be calculated in real terms. Some readers are quite forgiving and others seem to look for an excuse to abandon a book or an author. If it’s a technical concern about “the way stories should be written”, that only goes so far. Creativity and sound writing can bag the accepted norms with great success.
So what “takes away from the story” is just another “rule” that suffers from the ambiguity of opinion. Betting you hold your own opinions on this . . .
Lord, we’re desperate for you in all areas of our lives. Lead us in your ways and may your grace flow through us. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
Into the Fire 
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