When Writing Upstages Story

Upstage is a theater term. This is when one actor over-acts and pulls the attention of the audience to himself——regardless of the intended focus of the script or the play. This is a selfish move, one meant to highlight the actor and his skill at the cost of the other elements of the play. Upstaging is bad acting and can be either intentional or unintentional. Upstaging is always spotted by the audience. It pulls them out of the viewing experience and results in a failed scene.

Because we are writers and writing is what delights us, there is a tendency, especially among newer writers, to allow the writing to upstage the story——to make the writing the product we’re seeking to produce vs. the story and the reader’s experience of it. This is a type of author intrusion. Such writing is characterized by overly complex language, over-use of modifiers (adjectives, similes, etc.), and awkward, unwieldy sentences. What readers say when they read this kind of writing is ‘I tried. I just couldn’t get into the story.’ A failed scene.

If your writing is trying to accomplish anything other than a lasting reader experience, refocus the work. No reader is going to come to your work for the purpose of consuming beautiful words and marveling at your skill. Readers read for the intoxication story offers. And it’s your job to enable them to do so.