Keeping Your Reader from Reading

 Don't you just hate it when someone keeps reading your book?  

Me, too! 

Here are a few tips on how to stop that reader before the end of the first chapter. Heck, if you do it right, most readers won't read more than a few pages.

1.  Start your story off with

* your main character eating popcorn and watching a movie or TV show in their living room.  Give details of the movie's plot.

*your main character waking up, getting breakfast, and dressing for the day.

*your main character at her workplace or job doing something mundane that has nothing to do with the plot.  Be sure to go into great detail to insure boredom!

*your main character running into a hot former flame but immediately leaving then spending many pages remembering how screwed up their relationship was.  Whatever you do, don’t let those ex-lovers talk about those old times and let sparks fly!

*a prologue that has little to do with the rest of the novel but gives lots of back story the reader will never really need.

*so much information about your world building and character's magical abilities that the reader is totally confused.

*introducing so many characters that the reader becomes hopelessly confused.

2.  Make sure your first chapter has the right percentage of dialogue, narrative, and introspection.  

10% or less:  Narrative which includes action (John flinched as she wagged her finger in his face.), immediate emotional comments (Mary fought her desire to strangle him with his tie.), and description (Clothes littered the room like confetti at a ticker tape parade.).

10% or less:  Dialogue, particularly dialogue that gives information ("I know that Mary murdered John!  I hope they hang her."), shows conflict between characters ("You're a liar.  Mary loved him.  She was framed."),  or moves the story forward.  ("And I'll prove she didn't do it.") 

80%  or more:  The viewpoint character's introspection about the past.  Give that reader back story, internal whining, and emotional navel gazing until she is screaming for mercy and throwing that manuscript down!

3.  Have the main character or characters wander around aimlessly with no goal or motives.

4. Have such poor grammar and spelling that no one can understand half of what you write.

5. Love your writing so much that it is impossible to cut out anything. 

How to Foreshadow

I'm sure you've watched a movie or TV show where a character is getting ready to open a door, and you just know that the killer is waiting for her. You scream silently, "No, no, don't open that door!"

How do you know something the character doesn't? Part of that is foreshadowing. The filmmaker has given you clues that the character doesn't have.

For a written story, an author doesn't have the luxury of using spooky music or atmospheric lighting, but she does have other tricks to give the reader the same sense of something lurking behind that closed door.

The simplest way to do this is to have more than one viewpoint in your story. For example, one character learns that the killer is going after your heroine, then when you switch to the heroine's viewpoint, the reader will be expecting something bad to happen.

Another way is to embed a clue that the heroine sees but doesn't recognize as important because she's learning so much and being menaced at the same time. The reader will often pick up on the clue and recognize the danger.

A third way is to have your character more ignorant or innocent than the reader. A child may misunderstand a situation an adult would recognize as dangerous, and the person who refuses to believe a psychopath or monster is lurking will be easy prey in the reader's eyes.

A fourth way is a subtle use of language. Stephen King is a master of giving the reader the creeps when nothing appears to be happening but soon will. I recommend his ON WRITING which should be in your local library for more on the subject.  King gets this subject right.  Other topics like plotting are very wrong.

A fifth way is genre expectations. In a horror novel, the reader is expecting that scare so it takes almost nothing to make her tense as the character opens that door in the empty house that may be the killer's hiding place.

A really clever way to use genre expectations is to set up a scary situation then let it fizzle, or the "bad guy" is captured, and the moment the character and the reader let their guard down, the real killer makes his move.

Foreshadowing doesn't have to be about unhappy or dangerous things to come. You can as easily foreshadow happy events. The square shape in the hero's tuxedo jacket pocket may be a diamond engagement ring box, and he and the heroine are dining at a very nice restaurant, after all, so you and the heroine may be guessing which way the meal will end.

Voice

I've read somewhere that an author doesn't have a voice or true style until they have written over a million words. This is true to a certain extent. By the time we've written that long, we've stopped trying to copy our favorite authors or second guess ourselves, etc., if for no other reason than we're tired of doing that. 

Some writers don't read the kind of fiction they write while they are working on a book for fear that they will start copying a writer's voice instead of using their own. 

Voice is more than just the use or misuse of metaphors, etc. I know I choose the language I use because of the character's viewpoint I'm in. (I write strict third-person viewpoint.) 

One character might see a plane wreck and describe it in my narrative as 

The plane's pieces were scattered over the valley like clothes dropped by a drunk on the way to bed. 

Another character who is more analytical would think 

The gouge of earth left by the plane's moving fuselage led him to a boulder. The left wing tip lay against it. The furrow veered violently left there, and bits of wing then fuselage littered the area around it. When there was nothing left of the plane to break apart, the gouge ended.

The author must also choose voice by the genre expectations of the readers. Choosing the wrong voice can be quite jarring.

Can you imagine a romance novel written like a "noir" detective novel. 

I can say this for Lord Garven, he was built, built like Cleopatra's Needle, but I walked away alone in the dark, dank London fog. I had my partner to avenge, and he had a date with Lord Southby.

One big mistake I've seen used by beginning writers is emulating the wrong writers, especially writers from the past. 

A friend had this thing for Sinclair Lewis who wrote in the early 20th century, but I had to explain to him that Lewis' style was hopelessly outdated with its languid pace, florid style, and sentence structure, and with the current tastes of editors and readers, he would find no readers. 

It's equally disastrous to emulate the current literary style of the moment like writing in first person immediate. 

I look at Lord Garven. He is built. Like Cleopatra's Needle. But I shake my head no and walk through the door. I must find my partner's killer. 

By the time you're publishable, the moment is long gone. 

What I'm saying is find the right voice for each work, and your own voice will emerge.

A Brief History of Narrative

Narrative has dwindled in importance since the first novels. Compare a novel of a hundred years ago to one today, and you'll see what I mean. 

What you'll find is that descriptions, dialogue, and narrative have all simplified. 

Descriptions aren't as detailed, and you certainly won't find long pages of descriptions of the countryside, the houses, or the clothes. 

The narrative has become more intimate with the author less intrusive. The reader is put dead center into the character's head and thoughts, and the intimacy tends to only be for one or two characters, not every character in the novel. 

Instead of omniscient, the current standard in fiction is third and first person. Most fiction is written in warm third person with occasional forays into cold third person. Hot third person tends to be only used in romance which is about emotions.

The paragraphs are also shorter.

The dialogue carries more story weight because it must give the reader more information about what the characters are thinking and seeing as well as advancing the plot. 

In other words, much of the fat of the novel has been trimmed because modern readers want only the meat and bone of the story.  This trend continues today with the narrative even more spare than it was a few years ago.

The fourth wall is never acknowledged anymore in genre narrative because of the more intimate viewpoint. You will never see this in a contemporary novel-- "Do not despair, gentle reader, for Becky will soon get her comeuppance." 

Constantly shifting viewpoints in third person has never been used in fiction except in the romance of the last twenty-five years where a bastardization of omniscient and third person developed more from ignorance of narrative techniques than deliberate choice. 

At its best, it is close to the norm of omniscient; at its worst, it is annoying and rather nauseating in a motion-sickness sort of way as the reader is jerked back and forth between two heads and offered considerably more information than is necessary. 

Few writers (Nora Roberts, for example) can write well using shifting viewpoints, and it is the kiss of death for most editors when they are looking at submissions because it shows the writer doesn't know what the spit they are doing. 

As an interesting side note, video techniques are changing viewpoint. Editors frown at sentences like, "His hand ran up and down her back." They prefer, "He ran his hand up and down her back." Body parts should not act independently according to editor thought. 

However, many writers now prefer, "His hand ran up and down her back," because they see this as a close-up in their mental video of the action, and it is beginning to creep into published writing.

In a few years, this type of video technique may be as common in genre narrative as the other changes we have seen.

Finding Your Voice

 I've read somewhere that an author doesn't have a voice or true style until they have written over a million words. This is true to a certain extent. By the time we've written that long, we've stopped trying to copy our favorite authors or second guess ourselves, etc., if for no other reason than we're tired of doing that. 

Some writers won’t even read the kind of fiction they write while they are working on a book for fear that they will start copying a writer's voice instead of using their own. 

Voice is more than just the use or misuse of metaphors, etc. I know I choose the language I use because of the character's viewpoint I'm in. (I write strict third-person viewpoint.) 

One character might see a plane wreck and describe it in my narrative as

The plane's pieces were scattered over the valley like clothes dropped by a drunk on the way to bed.

Another character who is more analytical would think

The gouge of earth left by the plane's moving fuselage led him to a boulder. The left wing tip lay against it. The furrow veered violently left there, and bits of wing then fuselage littered the area around it. When there was nothing left of the plane to break apart, the gouge ended.

The author must also choose voice by the genre expectations of the readers. Choosing the wrong voice can be quite jarring.

Can you imagine a romance novel written like a "noir" detective novel. 

I can say this for Lord Garven, he was built, built like Cleopatra's Needle, but I walked away alone in the dark, dank London fog. I had my partner to avenge, and he had a date with Lord Southby.

One big mistake I've seen used by beginning writers is emulating the wrong writers, especially writers from the past. 

A friend had this thing for Sinclair Lewis who wrote in the early 20th century, but I had to explain to him that Lewis' style was hopelessly outdated with its languid pace, florid style, and sentence structure, and with the current tastes of editors and readers, he would find no readers.

It's equally disastrous to emulate the current literary style of the moment like writing in first person immediate. 

I look at Lord Garven. He is built. Like Cleopatra's Needle. But I shake my head no and walk through the door. I must find my partner's killer.

By the time you're publishable, the moment is long gone. 

What I'm saying is find the right voice for each work, and your own voice will emerge.

A NOTE ABOUT "VOICE" AND EDITORS AND AGENTS:

Some editors and agents will tell you they don't like your voice. What they often mean is that you aren't writing in the current popular voice of the genre. 

For example, most urban fantasy with a female protagonist is written with the chatty, sarcastic tone of first-person chick lit. Some really excellent and popular urban fantasy is written in third person, but, unfortunately, most editors seem to ignore this fact.

A Rewrite Checklist

It’s always good to have a checklist at hand when you are ready to rewrite your story.  Below are a number of questions you can ask yourself as you work.  

As you learn your weaknesses as a writer, this list can be changed to include questions that focus on your problem areas.

This list is also a good start for critique partners.

THE FIRST CHAPTER

Do I have a hook in the first few, or better yet, the first page?

Have I shown the main character’s goal, short-term, or better yet, for the whole novel?

EACH CHAPTER

Does this chapter advance the story?  

Tell more about the characters?

Give plot information?  

Does it work with the chapter before it?

PLOT  

Do the characters and plot work well together, or is the plot 

just pasted on?

Does it make sense?

Does one thing lead to another?

Has the story started at the right place?

Does the action escalate?

Are more plot questions asked before a plot question is resolved?

Does the plot fit genre boundaries?

CHARACTERS

Does each character sound different?  Do they have a voice of their own?

Are the characters doing what they as characters and personalities should be doing, or are they being moved around for my convenience?  

Will the reader understand why they are doing certain things?

Does each major character have a strength and a weakness which will be affected by the plot?

In the romantic relationship, is their emotional conflict strong enough 

for the length of the work?  Will it take more than one long talk to resolve their conflict?  Does their romantic relationship work with the action plot?

In the action plot, is the conflict between the hero and his opponent strong enough?  Is the opponent strong enough to really push the hero to his limits? 

POINT OF VIEW

Is the proper point of view maintained in each scene?

Would a scene work better from another character's viewpoint?

Is there only one viewpoint character in each scene?

INTERIOR MONOLOGUES

Does this interior monologue slow the scene too much?

Could this information or emotion be expressed in dialogue or action?

Am I telling too much? 

SENTENCE STRUCTURE

Do the sentences vary in length?  

Does the language fit the actions? Long sentences for leisurely, more introspective moments?  

Short, terse sentences and words for action scenes?

LANGUAGE

Am I intruding, or am I invisible so the story can tell itself?  

Does cause and effect happen correctly?  

Am I showing rather than telling?  

WORLD BUILDING

Is the world building well thought out?

Is it logical?

Did I break my own rules?

If a myth or fantasy element is changed from common knowledge, is it a logical or understandable change?  Is it explained? (a vampire who can survive daylight, for example)