Writing Hint 3

Don't treat your stories like swiss cheese :)

 

I just listened to half of a talk given by Dan Brown the author of the De Vinci Code, I had to hit pause and write this down.

He has tossed out an idea to me that I love, (and often fail to do) think of the readers willingness to read your book as a contract. He the reader will stick with your adventure if you the writer promise to answer the questions your world creates. When he was writing the De Vinci Code, he had written everything, but the ending, and still had 17 questions that needed to be satisfied. So, he wove those items into a finally. 

(lightbulb moment) Really, I had never thought of that way.

 

So not only are we the writer creating, we the reader need to be satisfied, then answer those questions your stories create. 

I will be more aware of the looming questions that need to be woven into the plot. Because there is a difference between a cliffhanger and holes in the story. 

Reviews

[Robert Trakofler]

I hope you are saving these

[Robert Trakofler]

I think you can sense when a writer is just stabbing at shadows in the story-line and not sure of its culmination, an unintentional disingenuous hue fills the spaces in between the lines. I get the, let the story flow thing... but i cant imagine writing a story and not knowing the answer. You just opened up in a nut shell why i'm so hesitant to write in story form! In poetry in my writing style it is one part divination one part deconstruction and one part revelation. The story process must be a different mindset I think?

[Cherrie Palmer]

I think an important key is to write like a reader.
We know what we like to discover in a story, and as the storyteller we should mold or writing as such.
There are elements i slap down on paper that I have no intention to attend to ( a built in mystery if you will)
But I had never considered the need to deepen the image for the reader, and flush out a few more details.

[Vin]

Good one. This is helpful.
Please keep sharing

[Cherrie Palmer]

It is a good one. It really spoke to me. I hope to pick this tip up and use it.
Knock on wood.
I never thought it important to answer the questions my stoeies created (but I never looked at it from the readers point of view) and it makes good sense to me. It will improve the flow and give the story built in keynotes to develop.