From the SRP Editor site:
Writers have a funny little insecurity kink: we think if we don’t explain everything, in detail, preferably three times and with diagrams, the reader will miss the point… and then somehow blame us for it.
But here’s the thing: readers aren’t idiots. They’re actually pretty good at this whole “reading between the lines” business. They’ve been doing it since they were seven. They can pick up on tone, subtext, implication, and mood. They know when a character is lying. They understand when tension is building, even if you, the author, are sweating bullets wondering whether you’ve signposted it clearly enough.
And if there’s one piece of wisdom worth tattooing onto your forehead: trust your readers.
Over-Explaining Kills the Magic
The moment you explain a joke, it dies. It doesn’t just die quietly either—it goes down like a melodramatic opera tenor, clutching its chest and wailing as it topples off the stage.
“Get it? It’s funny because…”
No. Stop. Don’t ever be that guy.
The same is true in fiction. When you over-explain a character’s emotions (“She felt sad, because this was sad”) or underline your theme with a fluorescent marker (“This event symbolized her emotional rebirth”), you’re telling the reader you don’t trust them. And nothing pulls them out of your story faster.
Subtlety Works—Even in Commercial Fiction
Let’s take a few examples:
1. Jaws, by Peter Benchley
Benchley never once stops the narrative to explain, “The shark represents our primal fear of the unknown.” He lets the events do the talking: a fin, a missing swimmer, a bloody froth where a kid used to be. Readers get it. They feel the fear without being told what to feel.
2. First Blood, by David Morrell
Notice how Morrell never pauses to say, “Rambo is traumatized from Vietnam and struggling with reintegration.” It’s all in the reaction patterns, the clipped dialogue, the simmering internal tension. Morrell trusts you to pick up what Rambo’s not saying.
3. The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum
Ludlum doesn’t spoon-feed you Jason Bourne’s identity crisis. Instead, he lets you live inside it. The confusion, the instincts Bourne shouldn’t have, the violence he’s capable of—it all adds up, and Ludlum trusts you to assemble the puzzle without handing you the box with the picture on it.
4. And yes—my own Sister Jacobine stories
I don’t stop to deliver footnotes like:
“Alice has seen a lot of violence and therefore often anticipates danger even in casual scenes.”
I write the scene. She notices the wrong detail, steps out of the way before the shot rings out, quietly shelves her immortality like it’s old news. I trust the reader to understand that she’s lived half a millennium without ever lecturing them about it.
The Reader Wants to Play
Good storytelling is a collaboration: you lay the clues, shape the patterns, fire the emotional beats—and the reader meets you halfway. They connect the dots. They form the meaning. They have the “ohhh” moment.
If you over-explain, you rob them of the satisfaction of discovery.
Readers love that feeling of putting a piece together a heartbeat before the protagonist does. They want to gasp, nod, realize, anticipate. They want to feel clever.
Let them.
Practical Rule of Thumb
If you’ve shown something clearly in the scene and your impulse is to follow it with a line like “He didn’t trust her anymore”—cut that line. The reader already knows.
If you wrote a joke and feel tempted to clarify the punchline—delete the explanation. Trust the laugh to land.
If you’re about to drop a paragraph labeled “Here is the theme”—shred it, burn the shreds, bury the ashes.
Trusting Readers Makes You a Better Writer
It forces you to:
- write cleaner
- write leaner
- write with sharper intention
- craft scenes that demonstrate instead of lecture
- rely on subtext instead of neon signs
Most importantly, it keeps your story alive. Because when a reader leans in, fills in the gap, and makes the connection themselves—that’s engagement. That’s immersion. That’s the magic.
— Mark
