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Keeping the Reader Reading How to create a story that will suck the reader in like a black hole and not belch him out until "The End." Marilynn Byerly
THE HOOK
What gets us into a story? What keeps us there? Let's look at two beginnings of the same story.
Here's the second beginning--
Which beginning draws the reader in? I imagine most readers would say the second one. Why? Both stories are about the same person on the same day, but the second story begins at an important, exciting moment, and the questions it asks of the reader makes her want to keep reading. Why has Faith been drugged? Where is she? Who is the man leaning over her and what will he do to her? The moment and those questions are called the hook. In the average short story, the hook should be in the first few paragraphs; in the average novel, within the first few pages.
VISUAL AND SENSUAL DETAILS But the hook isn't the only reason the second selection works better. Here's another version of that second selection.
Why does the first work better than the second? Compare the room descriptions.
In comparison:
The second gives visual details -- corners, shapes, white curtains, the shadows of raindrops. It also gives details from the other senses -- the smell of the ocean and the sheets, and the feel of the wind from the open window. The reader should be in that room at this point because she can visualize it.
CHARACTERS The hook which is the beginning of the plot, and the visual and sensual details aren't enough to create a story. We need one or more characters who will let us see what they see and experience the events as they do. These characters must have an important goal and be characters the reader can like or empathize with. In the scenes I've already used, we have Faith Cody, a school teacher, who becomes involved in the rescue of the two kidnapping children she'd been hired to tend for the summer. She will be the main character the reader will follow through this plot. She's a nice lady and someone a reader can root for, and her goal--the rescue of two small children-- is a very worthy one. She will be our viewpoint character.
CHARACTER MOTIVATION In one of my first stories, I had the main character in a surly mood in the opening scene without telling the reader why he was acting the way he was. A friend who critiqued the story wrote in the margin, "Who pissed in his oatmeal this morning?" It's a comment I hear in my head every time I discover I need to rewrite an under-motivated character. Characters should have very good reasons to act as they do. We must give them motivations that the reader can understand. The most common mistake most new writers make is having a character act in a certain way because the writer needs her to act in a certain way. This is as true for the villain as it is for the main viewpoint character. If your bad guy doesn't act without proper motivation, the whole story falls apart. To learn more about the motivation of the villain, read my articles "The Back Plot Thickens," and my article on plotting with index cards.
VIEWPOINT AND NARRATIVE DISTANCE For a writer, viewpoint is more than the standard list you learned in English. We not only have to choose from first, second, third, and omniscient viewpoints, we also have to choose narrative distance. The standard viewpoint for genre fiction is third person where the viewpoint character is referred to as "he" or "she." First person is acceptable in some mystery fiction and romance, but it's not seen as often in sf and fantasy. In omniscient viewpoint you read the thoughts of all or most of the characters' heads. It has fallen out of favor in the last twenty years, and you will only rarely see it in genre with the exception of Regency romances where the writer is attempting to mimic the style of Jane Austen and her contemporaries. Why is it out of favor? Narrative distance. The current trend in writing is for warm or hot viewpoint in popular fiction, and omniscient is by its nature cold. The simplest example of cold viewpoint would be a novel written from Spock's viewpoint. Emotion doesn't cloud the events seen by the narrator. Books of high epic fantasy like THE LORD OF THE RINGS are primarily in cold viewpoint because the books have a sense of a great story being retold, and the individual is less important than the story itself. Warm viewpoint allows emotions from the viewpoint character, but the emotions aren't always center stage. Most sf, fantasy, and mysteries are written primarily in warm viewpoint. Hot viewpoint is most often seen in romance, and I'm not talking just about the sex scenes. Hot viewpoint allows the emotions to be emphasized. What the viewpoint character feels is just as important as what is happening. Even romances are not told only in hot viewpoint which is reserved for scenes of emotional importance. All three forms of narrative distance can usually be found in novels. In my novel, STAR-CROSSED, for example, I wrote the heroine primarily in hot viewpoint because she's a loving and giving person who thinks as much with her heart as her scientist's brain. The hero was written primarily in warm viewpoint because he's a guy, dang it, and guys tend to think in cold or warm viewpoint with occasional careful forays into hot. He also doesn't trust his emotions so he keeps them in check. My villain I wrote in cold viewpoint because she was emotionally cold and frightening in a reptilian way, and, frankly, I had no desire to get that deep into her sick psyche, and I knew most of my readers would feel the same way.
VIEWPOINT AS CAMERA OR AS PARTICIPANT The most common mistake in viewpoint that many new writers make is they become a camera rather than the actor in the scene. In other words, they are sitting in the corner scribbling away as they describe the movie going on in front of them. As a camera, the writer would write:
The correct place for the writer to be is in the brain and body of the viewpoint character. She should describe what the viewpoint character sees and feels to make the scene come alive. Here's the same scene through the filter of Faith Cody
The trick to being in a character's head rather than watching from the outside is to create a reality for the reader. Use visual language. Make the reader SEE what the character sees. Make the reader feel what the character feels. Don't say, "Pamela was afraid." Say, "Shivers ran down her back like cold fingers." In other words, show, don't tell. If a character is angry, don't have him shout dialogue or "say angrily." Use his actions instead. If he's grinding a wadded paper to pulp in his hand while he's talking, you can be darn sure he's mad.
TWO OR MORE BRAINS Another very common problem with viewpoint is writing a scene from the brains of two or more characters at the same time. We are privy to what each character is thinking. Here is an example.
In this short bit of dialogue, the effect of multiple viewpoints isn't too bad, but in a scene, it can be very annoying or confusing as it becomes a verbal ping-pong match among multiple players. The reader ends up with mental whiplash or nausea from all that back and forth between brains. When I point out the multiple viewpoint error, the most common comment I get from new writers is, "But I have to explain what the other characters are feeling about what is happening." My answer is, "No, you don't. Give the reader clues by describing the physical actions of the characters, or their tone of voice, or by trusting the reader's knowledge of the character, then let the reader fill in the blanks. Filling in the blanks is an important part of the enjoyment for the reader." If Nick's face goes blank with shock as if someone has slapped him unexpectedly when he hears his ex-wife is pregnant with her new husband's baby, the reader can figure out what is going on emotionally with him without being privy to his thoughts.
NARRATIVE AND VIEWPOINT Narrative is essentially the prose in a story as opposed to the dialogue. It tells the reader what is happening and gives her images to visualize what is happening. It also tells her even more about the viewpoint character because what is seen and how it is described tells as much about the character as the dialogue. One character might see a plane crash scene and visualize it like this--
Another character who is more analytical would think--
VIEWPOINT CHANGES WITHIN A SCENE I've said that you shouldn't have more than one viewpoint within a scene, and that's usually true, but you can shift viewpoint to another character for the remainder of a long scene. In this scene from my work in progress, GUARDIAN ANGEL, the heroine has been the viewpoint character through a long chase scene, and an interrogation by FBI Agent Mark Faulkner. She and her bodyguard who is Mark's ex-partner are ready to leave. Mark kisses her to make Gard jealous. At that point, I switch to Gard's viewpoint for the remainder of the chapter.
How did I show a viewpoint change? That's our next subject.
BEGINNING A SCENE'S VIEWPOINT In each scene, a writer should identify the viewpoint character immediately in some manner then place that character within the scene itself. Have him think something which shows that he is now the viewpoint character. In the scene above, the word "forced" is the reader's first clue that we are now in Gard's viewpoint. The rest of the paragraph reinforces his viewpoint. Even if the scene is primarily introspection, the character still should be in a physical place at the beginning. In other words, first show that the viewpoint character is Hamlet, show that he is standing on the battlements of the royal castle, and he's staring at clouds, then let him think about whether he should believe the ghost of his father or not.
WAKING THE READER UP John Gardner, the author of GRENDEL, created the perfect analogy of writing in THE ART OF FICTION. He said that the writer creates a dream for the reader, and the writer must do nothing which wakes the reader up. Getting viewpoint right is a major part of keeping the reader within your dream. Here are some other mistakes which will wake the reader up.
THE FINAL HOOK Hooks aren't just for the beginning. Smart writers always have a hook at the end to make the reader want to buy the writer's next story. The final hook is the fulfilled promise of the story. If the story is a romance, the story should end with the promised "happily ever after." In a mystery the crime is solved or justice is meted out, and in a fantasy the quest is achieved. Science fiction as a genre doesn't have such an obvious promise, but the individual story has a goal which must be reached. A "warm fuzzy" scene often acts as an additional hook. Warm fuzzies are the scene of domestic bliss with the hero and heroine holding their baby, or the traveler returning home to family, or the companions sharing a laugh and a beer. If a warm fuzzy doesn't fit the tone of the story, an extremely powerful and emotional final scene is the most effective hook possible. The reader will read the end, sit quietly for a short time, then mutter to himself, "Damn that was good," and he'll wait eagerly for the writer's next story.
REACHING "THE END" A story ends when the character has achieved his primary goal, or he achieves some form of closure relating to the goal unachieved. For example, he gets the girl or gets over not getting the girl. Often, the main character has some realization about "what it's all been about" at the very end. This can be as heavy handed as a stated moral to the story, or a subtle use of imagery that has appeared through the story, or a victory celebration of some sort. The best "moral to the story" I can think of right now is the end of the film, THE MALTESE FALCON. The hero, played by Humphrey Bogart, has turned in the woman he loves for the murder of his partner. In a voice over, he says he did this because the code he lives by as a private eye is even more important to him than love. My STAR-CROSSED ends as it begins with the hero talking whimsically about wishing on a star. At the end, his wish has come true in the form of the woman in his arms. I used stars through the novel as images of aspirations and dreams, and even my cover has a man's manacled hand reaching for a star that is out of reach. These images tie the novel together until the images converge at the end with the hero's final words. The most memorable victory celebration for me is the end of the original STAR WARS where Luke, Han, and Chewie receive medals for destroying the Death Star. Everyone is happy and victory has been achieved. With a blare of John Williams' stirring martial music I end as well since the black hole is ready to belch.... THE END Copyright © 2004 by Marilynn Byerly This article may be reproduced, but only with the permission of Marilynn Byerly (marilynnbyerly@aol.com). It must contain the byline and copyright information.
Marilynn Byerly is teaching three online writing courses in 2008. To learn more, click on the link of each course. "The Big Question: How to Create a Powerful Novel from a Few Ideas and One Big Question" Magic, Monsters and Amour: Creating a Believable Paranormal World. |
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