It's your job to propel the
reader through your story without having them feel they
are wading through your writing. In fact, your ultimate
aim is somehow make the reader feel they're not actually
reading at all.
It's what I call transparency
- the idea that there is nothing between your reader's
mind and your story - nothing as ugly as the text getting
in the way!
Q.E.D. is a little acronym you might want
to use to help you remember what you need to create
compelling fiction on every page of your stories. Q.E.D.
stands for:
Question
Empathy
Drama
Questions encourage people to look for
answers. When readers read fiction they are asking
themselves a series of questions about your characters
and about your story.
Only when you satisfy your reader by
feeding questions and later-on providing answers will the
reader feel entertained.
At the beginning of a new sheet of paper,
ask yourself, What question am I going to place in the
reader's mind on this page?
You must have one – it’s what
makes the reader keep reading. Without constantly stoking
curiosity, a reader will simply get bored and not read
on.
Empathy is crucial too. We looked at this.
Not only is it important that you create empathy for your
characters early on, you will also need to keep
reinforcing it as you go.
Hopefully the actions that your characters
make will take care of some of this. But you should be
aware that if you feel your characters slipping away from
you, it’s probably because you’re not keeping
them human enough to be compelling.
A reader’s total empathy with a
character can be powerful. It is the hallmark of all good
fiction writers. To create a hero that is credible and
popular is the goal of most leading authors. Because once
you’ve done that, you can take your readers almost
anywhere with them.
When it’s done well, the reader is
totally in your thrall and will trust you to take him
further, on the adventure that is your novel, or series
of novels.
Use it consciously. Readers rarely spot
that you’re doing it deliberately. They only know
what they like and that is, for the time they are
reading, they like being your lead character.
Lastly, D is for Drama again. It’s
important that you create drama, conflict and tension at
least once on every page. It’s the way of modern
fiction.
People want to be entertained. But
they’ve seen it all before. On TV and at the movies.
Try to think of new ways of being dramatic.
Don't get bogged down with description.
You don’t need long explanations or descriptions of
things they are familiar with. It’s just not
necessary.
Readers want to be thrown into the thick
of things immediately. There are a hundred ways to do
that but most of them involve action, conflict and drama.
If you find yourself wandering from the point and nothing
in particular is happening, cut back to where the last
piece of conflict was, delete all the verbiage and static
writing and move off again – this time at high
speed!
Imagine you’re a soap opera writer
where every scene counts, and every exchange is
emotionally charged. Try not to sink into melodrama
– but be aware that you’re writing primarily to
entertain.
At the beginning and ending of every new
page ask yourself:
Q.E.D? Have I fulfilled the three
requirements of compelling fiction?
If the
answer is yes then you’re probably on the way to
becoming the next bestseller writer!
