Interesting Writing 101
Have you ever read a book that’s just so… I mean, it is the most grueling… You just can’t even keep your eyes open!
I’ve spotted a few of those books here and there. In the past they left me wondering, “What went wrong here?” and ultimately, “Oh, crap… I hope I don’t write like that!”
You probably wouldn’t bore me to tears with your writing, but I think it’s important for all of us to remember our readers and how they might perceive our stories. Forget the reason the reader came to you, and you may very well fall into the pit of boring writers. And the reason the reader is at your book’s doorstep?
TO BE ENTERTAINED!
Fail at entertainment, and you fail the reader. Fail the reader, and you lose the reader.
However, it’s not like these other writers (not you) were on a mission to create brain-deadening stories. How can we make certain we don’t inject the Boredom Disease into our readers’ synapses? Well, I think there are mainly two ways (during the writing process… Beta Readers come later):
1. Dire Details ONLY
Don’t you dare fill your story with so many pointless descriptions that the page could pour them out like grease from a pizza slice. Wring it out. Leave the important stuff.
Look, I get it. I really do. You want your story to reach a certain amount of pages and/or words. Friends, slapping in excessive details isn’t the way to do it. Trying too hard to hit a certain number of pages can ink in trouble from cover to cover. When we let word count trump craftsmanship, we end up with one big pointless puke bucket of words–a college paper, if you will (Ohhhh, BURN).
But you’re in luck because the second way we avoid dusty writing is the correct way to successfully increase page/word count…
2. Excite Yourself
When you get bored with what you’re writing, don’t trudge through it! People who decide to just push forward through rising flood waters end up drowning (even in a gorgeous Jeep Rubicon… my dream machine). When you start getting bored, back it up, figure out where you started scribbling down unimportant stuff, and then…
MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN!
MAKE something happen. Make. It. Happen. Make action happen. It’s your story, so anything at all can happen whenever you want it to happen! Is there something that needed to happen that you neglected to build into your story? Then, fix it. Write it. Put it in there.
I like to tell people that I write from action sequence to action sequence and sprinkle in the details as I go. I’m in it for the thrill of the ride, and if the ride starts getting slow, I inject some NOS (I’m in a car mood today, I guess).
So, let the necessary details stay but chuck the rest. Write for the action, for the thrill of that Rubicon ride, and if you need to make your work longer for some reason, write in more action that is supported by crucial detail. Keep yourself excited about what you’re writing!
What do you think, storytellers? Are there anymore ways that help you keep your writing engaging? I wanna hear about it, so leave me a comment below! And be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter to never miss blog content, new films, and my upcoming ebook on storytelling (FREE for email subscribers)!