As I started thinking about story arcs, I ran across this set of guidelines. It was put together by someone who does a lot of reviewing,
and as a reviewer myself, i can clearly imagine the kind of book that spurred
him to compose it. It appeared as part
of a longer article, which you might find at: www.writermarkstevens.com, but even
without the rest of the article, his point is clear: “Think about your reader,
not yourself. The important question is not what you want to write, but what
your reader wants to read.” You don’t have to follow these rules – unless, of
course, you hope to sell your book! Hope I can keep them firmly in mind for the next thirty days. • Keep it simple. • Give me one character with a strong point of view. • Show me that character’s attitude about one thing. • Don’t give me blah. • Or ordinary. • Give me edge; risk. • Convince me that the story starts on this day. • Rivet me with a colorful detail. Or two. • Decide why I want to spend a few hundred pages with your main character and give me one reason to engage in the first few pages. • Help me see, taste, smell, touch. Make it sensory. • Avoid using dialogue that is only designed to fill readers in on the background lives of the characters. (Just don’t!) This is dialogue as “info dump.” It’s deadly. • But, mostly, keep it simple. • Really simple. • No, really. |
