When you're writing a story, it can be tricky to know how much to trust your reader. What will they pick up from context? What might you need to spell out more clearly?

When I'm reading, I like to have the sense that the author is quietly and confidently in control of their story ... and I like them to trust me to be at least vaguely intelligent! That means that I want all the information I need to get the point ... without them hammering it home.

Finding this balance as a writer can be really difficult, though. You might think that a particular revelation in your story is clear ... only for it to confuse readers (or sail completely over their heads). Conversely, you might explain a point so you're sure readers will get it, only to receive feedback suggesting you've gone over the top.

Here's what over-explaining and under-explaining might look like.

Over-Explaining Example

"Jamie! Get yourself downstairs right now! You have some explaining to do." Dad’s shouts sounded angry to Jamie, who was upstairs. 

This example is only a couple of sentences long, but it's full of over-explaining.

For one thing, we don't need to be told that the shouts "sounded angry." We can guess Dad’s likely emotion from the words.

In fact, we don't probably don't even need to be told that Dad is shouting. The exclamation marks suggest it, plus the fact that Dad is presumably downstairs, shouting upstairs. And on that note, we can assume from the dialogue that Jamie is upstairs: this doesn't need spelling out.

The dialogue here could probably stand alone, without any of the line of narrative (assuming that Jamie thinks or responds something that makes it clear it's his Dad calling to him).

Under-Explaining Example

Natasha was lost in thought as she walked across the park, remembering the last time the snowdrops had been in bloom. She headed into work, where the first person she saw was Sam. Instead of saying good morning, she walked straight to her desk.

In this paragraph, we don't have any idea why Natasha is lost in thought. What happened when the snowdrops were last in bloom? Unless we’ve already had that context in this story, we’d probably expect a bit more here to clue us in. (It could be that the author is deliberately raising questions here, which is fine, but if the reader is supposed to know what’s happening, we need a bit more information!) 

There’s also a different form of under-explaining when Natasha gets to work: we might wonder, what’s her workplace like? Who’s Sam? (A colleague, presumably – but a receptionist? Natasha’s boss?) Why doesn't Natasha return Sam's greteing? The author may well have a clear picture of the scene and of what's happening inside Natasha's head, but those details haven't made it onto the page.

It can be tricky to get the right balance of under/over-explaining to your reader when you’re drafting. You might find yourself belabouring a point because you’re not confident you’ve adequately explained it in the first place – or you might under-explain because the story is so clear in your mind, you haven’t quite realised you need to convey that clarity on the page. 

This is something that’s best fixed in editing – perhaps with the help of a beta reader. Ask them to flag up places where they felt lost/confused/like they didn’t get something – you’ve probably under-explained. And ask for places where something seemed repetitive or redundant: that’s over-explaining.

The good thing about under- and over-explaining is that they're both quite easy issues to fix. You don't need to make major rewrites or structural changes. You often simply need to add or remove a sentence here and there ... and your writing will flow all the more smoothly for it.