I watched a
great movie yesterday, but is still wasn’t as good as the book. They never are
because they can’t be. I am not exposed to the inner thoughts. I was an outside
observer. I wasn’t in the story experiencing it.
Falling down the
rabbit role is why we read. Whether we’re curled up on the couch next to a
gentle fireplaces or on a crowded bus weaving through downtown traffic. Like
Alice, we want to get lost in a new world. We want to fall in so deep that we
are a part of the story. Our hearts racing with fear, laughing, crying, falling
in love. To feel something more, something different. It is my job as the
writer to get the reader there and keep them there.
Anything that
threatens to pull the reader out of the story has to be ruthlessly excised from
the written page. It cannot be allowed to interfere with the reader’s
suspension of reality.
Things that make
a difference in the reader’s ability to stay down the rabbit hole:
Flawless Copy – Misspellings,
typos, incorrect grammar, all remind the reader that they are reading a book. That
they aren’t traveling down the Nile on Cleopatra’s barge. They aren’t floating
down the Mississippi with a runaway slave.
Unbelievable Plot Points – The
turns and twists of the story have to make sense within the plot. Batman can’t
show up in Alice’s Wonderland without some serious explanation. Having Juliet live
and hook up with Mercutio would make the reader question everything they had
already read. They are no longer in the story but analyzing it.
Poor Word Choice – Using the
wrong word, even once, can throw a reader out of the story. A word that makes a
twelve year old girl sound like a forty year old business man jogs the reader,
making them pause, go back and reread things. Or worse, using a word
incorrectly. In the eternal words of Inigo Montoya “I don’t think the word
means what you think it means”. Like poor grammar, it reminds the reader they
are reading.
Pacing – The right mix of
dialog, description, and action is necessary to move the reader along. Too much of any one will make them skim.
Making them skip over the story like a rock on surface of a lake. To little
will leave them cold and alone, blocked from entering the new world.
Point of View – Head hoping from
one character to another within the same scene can be confusing. As always,
confusion pushes the reader out. It also makes it harder to care about the
characters and the situation. First person and third person close are the best
POV’s for holding a reader’s attention. Pick one POV per scene and stick to it.
Constantly changing POV makes the story like the Missouri river, a mile wide
and an inch deep.
Telling vice Showing – Showing us
what is happening allows us to experience it for ourselves. Telling on the
other hand is only providing us with information. A reader can’t get lost in
information. They get lost in emotion.
Consequences – If the reader
doesn’t care what is going to happen next then they are not going to stay in
the world. It is by making the reader worry and fret that we entrap them in our
world. This is why conflict is so important.
Anything that
gets between the reader and the world of the story is wrong and needs to be
eliminated. We as writers must strive to find and eliminate these barricades.
Hopefully with a lot of practice we will stop erecting them in the first place.
As always your metaphors are awesome! Great post!
ReplyDeleteYes! I love it when I get lost in a book. It''s the best feeling. =) Though, I do find, as a writer, I get this feeling less than I used to. I think I'm constantly thinking about all of those techniques and dos and don'ts in my own writing, that it's hard to turn it off when I look at another author's work. A lot of the time it's those oddly worded sentences or phrases I would have written differently that pull me out. But I guess that's the goal, right? To write a story so good, no one's going to notice those little things. Hopefully. ;)
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