What Do Readers Want?
by Nancy Brophy
Comma’s are the
bane of my existence. No matter whether I’m putting them in or
leaving them out, I’m wrong. I’ve come to accept this when my
friends ask, “Have you considered buying a book on punctuation?”
Comments abound on
writer’s loops about the horror of Indie-pubbed authors not putting
out perfect books. Even if you, like I, have someone edit for errors
they still turn up. Frankly, formatting was invented by the devil.
But the question isn’t about the formatting of the book. No one
writing a critique praises perfect punctuation.
The real question
is what do readers want?
They don’t want
to trip over grammatical and punctuation errors. We all know that. No
one is striving to write poorly. But readers for the most part aren’t
reading to critique, they are reading because they want a good story.
More than anything
else a reader wants to feel emotion. The stories we carry with us are
the ones where the character resonated with us. Maybe it wasn’t the
greatest story ever written, but we read it at exactly the right
moment in our life. I read Little Women probably around the time I
was nine or ten. For a long time, the story was my favorite going so
far as to motivate me to become a writer. But I reread Little Women
as an adult. What a preachy, self-serving novel. How could I have
liked so much as a child? Because I loved Jo.
Our goal as writers
is to evoke emotion in the reader. When we think of Scarlett O’Hara,
Frodo Baggins, or Harry Potter we think of people we’ve helped
overcome obstacles. Through identification with the characters, their
fight is also our fight.
We, as writers,
have to make their quest the best possible challenge. Your character
has to face insurmountable odds and be willing to give everything. If
the character holds back, the reader’s participation will skid to a
halt.
In Titanic, the
heroine leapt from the lifeboat onto the sinking ship to save the
hero. This resonated with young girls. The heroine gave her all.
Older women in the audience, many of whom could author a book,
called, “What I Did for Love” may have thought the heroine was a
fool, but we weren’t the ones who saw the movie fifteen times.
The reader must
connect with the characters on page one. And this is craft - the
heart of a good story. Because evoking emotion is not through angst,
but though technique. Give your characters a quest they can’t
refuse with a ticking time bomb in the background. Show me the story,
don’t tell it to me. Make your setting work. Who can’t picture
Tara, or Mordor or Hogswart? Utilize the five senses to draw me in.
I am reader as well as a writer. I, too, want a good story. In Hell On The Heart, Czigany Romney is perfectly happy. Yes, she’d have liked to have graduated high school, perhaps even attended college and become a CSI rather than working for her father and Uncle as an asthmatic sidekick. But leaving Armadillo Creek would be impossible. A gypsy without family would be like a ship without a rudder - directionless, unable to function.
Agent
John Stillwater's scarred face reflects the life of man dedicated to
protecting his country. Currently his team is dealing with a
nationwide white slavery ring, but lack evidence to prove it. An
unusual set of circumstances in a nowhere town in Texas leads John to
investigate. Can a petite gypsy woman bring down a man the FBI can't
find?
I
would love to hear your comments.
