On Writing

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    Learn plot, character, scene, and more this Saturday, Oct 9!

    ByJohn Brown

    All you Utah and mountain area writers & teachers, or those close enough to travel, I will be presenting and conducting workshops from 9:00 am until 4:30 pm this Saturday, Oct 9th as part of the Autumn Writers Conference sponsored by the American Fork Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

    The sessions I’ll conduct include:

    • Finding and Working With an Agent
    • How to Write a Story That Rocks: First Principles & Story Concept
    • Creating Characters that Rock
    • Plot
    • Writing Scenes: The Basic Units of a Novel

    There are four other tracks. Find all the details, including cost and contact info, on the organizer’s site: CalebWarnock.blogspot.com. I’m totally stoked for this. I’ll be sharing what I think are the Pareto factors in each of these areas — things I wish I would have known when I started and would have shaved years off my journey to publication.

    A number of other authors will be there including:

    • Annette Lyon (women’s fiction and a new cook book called Chocolate Never Faileth)
    • Josi Kilpack (mystery and suspense)
    • LeAnne Tolley (health and wellness)
    • Scott Livingston (poetry)
    • Caleb Warnock (self-sufficiency)
    • Loraine Scott (mystery)

  • The Key Conditions for Reader Suspense Part 1: Problem

    ByJohn Brown

    Sometimes it feels like there are a thousand things to remember when writing a story. New writers who make lists of these things soon begin to drown in them. But I’ve come to realize that many of these “rules” don’t matter.

    They don’t matter because many ignore the function of story. This makes it impossible to know how and when to apply them, or if they’re even something you should apply in the first place. Furthermore, a good number that do tie back to function often have little impact.

    In fact, the more I write, the more I believe the Pareto Principle applies to writing–a few vital factors make up most of the effect. The key is to focus on a limited number of fundamentals. To focus on these things that matter most. The things that produce the biggest bang for the buck.

    So what really matters when you’re writing a story?

    That all depends on what you’re trying to do. Form follows function.

    So what is the function, the objective?

    First of all, it’s something that happens in the reader. Readers buy stories because they provide a service, they do something to the reader, guide them into an experience. In this series, I take a look at what I think is one of the core elements of the story experience and identify the Pareto factors for delivering it to the reader.

    That story core, or at least a huge part of it, is suspense.

    Man goes out and turns on his sprinklers. They hiss to life. He scratches his bum, looks at the rising sun, goes back inside, and nothing more happens.

    You want to pay me money for that one? Want to make it into a movie? It’s a story.

    Yeah, it’s a story alright, you may say, but who cares?

    Okay, so maybe while he’s scratching his bum, a guy with a gun slips in the back. The intruder points the gun at the man’s daughter who is standing by the toaster buttering her bread. She’s a teenager, dressed in cutoffs and hiking boots. The intruder says, “Your father is going to be coming back through that door any time now. You’re going to call him into the kitchen. We’re going to have a chat. You two didn’t finish the business we talked about.”

    The girl only has a butter knife, but she grips it tighter, considers that only 13% of shots fired by cops in gunfights hit home. This was drilled into her by her firearms instructor. The guys who are trained only hit 13% of the time. It’s that low even though most gunfights start with the opponents standing only six feet away from each other–the distance between her and Gideon with his gun. That’s what happens when the adrenaline takes over. But Gideon doesn’t look like he’s full of adrenaline. He looks like a man going to a BBQ. So maybe he has a 40% chance with each bullet. That still gives her 60. 

    The front door opens. It distracts Gideon for just a moment. The barrel of his gun moves slightly to the left.

    It’s not a story yet, but it’s more interesting. And it’s more interesting because that second version generated something the first one never could. What it generated, dear Reader, was a little rise of hope, fear, and curiosity–a little suspense.

    After finishing draft 3 of CURSE OF A DARK GOD, I needed a break. So I reviewed my notes of DARK GOD’S GLORY, debriefed the many things I learned this last year about novels and story (and, oh boy, was it a year for learning), wrote up my “Ideal Novel” document, and then began to study structure and suspense. It’s been a wonderful and fruitful month.

    I think I’ve found some clarity and solidified a number of Pareto factors for suspense. Let me share my current thoughts on the subject. (Interestingly enough, the Writing Excuses guys just did a podcast on this subject: 5.4: Creating Suspense. You might want to check it out.)

    Because form follows function, let’s start with the end in mind.

    In the stories we love, the stories we stay up late at night for, the ones for which we pay $25.99 in hardback, the ones we willingly spend hours of our life on, those stories very frequently put the reader into a state of hoping and fearing for a character. This starts as curiosity and quickly moves to sympathy. Very often it builds to an edge-of-your-seat worry that continues up to the end of the novel. At that point the reader experiences a cathartic release.

    When we talk about suspense, this is what I believe we’re talking about. And a key thing to remember is that the tension we’re after is not something that’s in the text. It’s something the text builds IN the reader. So you may have massive explosions, deaths, chases, escapes, villains, and all the hordes of hell combine in your story, in the text, but that does not mean the story has dramatic tension. Because dramatic tension is a READER concept. You may have a relatively quite scene where a child is doing nothing more than swinging at a park, but because the reader knows the child molester has just arrived and the park is empty, the scene creates dramatic tension. The girl feels no tension. She’s just swinging away. But the reader’s tension goes through the roof. It’s all about what happens in the READER.

    So the question is what key factors of a story guide the reader into this dramatic tension?

    Well, we first need to understand what’s involved with this tension. What’s it made of? I came across a lovely *discussion of this last month in David Howard’s How to Build a Great Screenplay and have adapted it to my use. In emotional terms, we HOPE and FEAR for a character. “We don’t know what WILL happen, but we know [or suspect] what MIGHT happen, and therefore feel tension about those possibilities” (p52).

    Notice the key ideas:

    • Hope
    • Fear
    • Character
    • Uncertainty

    So what makes us hope or fear for someone? What makes us uncertain of an outcome?

    I see vital ingredients, key conditions in three of the four parts of story—problem, character, and plot. In this blog I’ll discuss the Pareto factors for suspense I see working in problem. In following posts, I’ll identify those I see in character and plot.

    The Nature of the Problem

    Form follows function, so what types of problems lead to us hoping and fearing for a character?

    When I look back at the stories I love that produce this effect in me, I see three main types of problems. I’ve talked about these before.

    Problem Type 1: Danger/Threat

    In this type of problem, there’s a danger or threat to some aspect of the character’s happiness that is significant enough that the READER can sympathize.

    With these problems we HOPE the character avoids or eliminates the danger, but we FEAR they may not. There are many aspects of happiness that might be threatened or in danger. I’ve listed below those that raise my FEAR and would raise my fear for someone else. I’ve stated them in first person, but you can think about them in third.

    1. Life

    In these situations my life is in danger or threatened.  People are out to kill me (HUNGER GAMES); I’m going to starve or freeze to death (“TO BUILD A FIRE”); there’s a shark in the water who would like a taste (JAWS).

    2. Security & well-being

    My security and physical well-being is in danger or threatened. These include all sorts of situations where bullies threaten me with violence or where I might be maimed in some way. Or I begin to lose some vital function—sight, hearing, speech, my ability to think, etc.

    3. Relationships

    In these situations my inclusion in a group is threatened. My love, friendship, relationship, feeling of belonging or of being valued are endangered. For example, I’m ostracized by a group, shunned, discriminated against. Or maybe my girlfriend begins to look at other men and I fear losing her, or my son and I become estranged and I fear losing him. This can even be a physical separation like in TAKEN (daughter kidnapped for the slave trade) or NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER (daughter kidnapped by husband).

    4. Meaningfulness

    In these situations my sense of fulfillment of doing something worthwhile is in danger. I’m threatened with a life of drudgery. You can see this at work in the beginning of THE INCREDIBLES where Bob, Mr. Incredible, has to work in a deadening insurance office. But it might be someone whose future or ability to do things that are meaningful to them is being threatened. For example, a boy who desperately wants to play the piano has his piano and is forced to do something else.

    5. Freedom

    Anything threatening our freedom. It might be slavery or blackmail or government control or a number of other things.

    6. Ownership

    In these situations my ability to retain and use my possessions is threatened. Any time something precious is stolen from me, my happiness is affected.

    7. Other aspects?

    These are the main aspects of happiness I’ve identified that seem significant enough to raise fears. If you think you know another, please post a comment.

    Problem Type 2: Lack/Opportunity

    In this type of problem, a character has a lack of and opportunity for some aspect of happiness that is significant enough that the READER can sympathize. These are often about characters in some kind of hardship. The lacks, hardships, and opportunities all have to do with the same aspects of happiness as listed above. In these situations we HOPE the character is able to fill the lack; we HOPE they will be able to grasp this opportunity for happiness. But we also FEAR they will fail.

    If you think about love stories, these are all stories of lack/opportunity. She’s alone, without a lover, or a satisfying and loving relationship, and she meets someone. Suddenly, she has an opportunity for happiness. As readers we immediately began to hope she will find that relationship wonderfulness and fear she might not.

    In the movie OCTOBER SKY a young boy lives in a coal mining community. But it’s not his thing. He suddenly gets an opportunity at school to do something with science. This is his ticket to doing something meaningful. We HOPE he doesn’t miss it, but we FEAR he might.

    Problem Type 3: Mystery

    A character encounters a mystery that is significant enough that the READER can sympathize or feel curiosity about it.

    The first two types of problems center on happiness. They raise suspense and sympathy and worry in the reader. This last type of problem centers more on raising curiosity in the reader. We HOPE the character solves the mystery because we want to know the answer as well, but we FEAR they might not.

    Very often these types of problem are paired with some aspect of happiness. The vast majority of murder mysteries, cop stories, and courtroom dramas do this. In fact, many happiness problems are paired with mysteries and puzzles.

    Problems that are HARD to Solve

    Let’s go back up to the objective. We want to HOPE and FEAR for the character. We don’t know what WILL happen but suspect or know what MIGHT and we worry and feel tension about the possibilities. We want to worry, and we want that worry to build to a pitch. We then want to experience a cathartic release.

    How will we FEAR if the problem is so easy anybody could fix it? How will we WORRY if the lead has all the odds stacked in his or her favor?  How will we feel UNCERTAIN if we know exactly what’s going to occur?

    I can’t worry for Frodo, for example, if all he has to do is cast the naughty ring into the pit of doom that lies on the other side of his street. I can’t worry about a guy finding a girl to love and who will love him, and have that worry build to a sharp edge-of-your-seat point, if all he has to do is proclaim his feelings and the girl immediately rushes to him forever.

    The facts are that we won’t feel fear, worry, or uncertainty unless the problem is HARD to solve. I’ll discuss the Pareto factors for making problems hard when I talk about plot.

    Problem Intensifiers

    Besides being hard, problems need to be urgent. I’ve identified four factors that seem to intensify the nature of the problem: probability, immediacy, significance, and specificity.

    1. Probable

    It’s one thing to face the one-in-a-gazillion chance that I might be trampled by a herd of elephants when I walk out of the door. It’s quite another to know that the last seven people who walked out of the door were killed by the madman with the AK-47 sitting at the end of the hall.

    The higher the probability of the threat or loss of opportunity, the more intense the problem becomes because it’s more likely I’ll lose. No probability and I have nothing to FEAR.

    2. Immediate

    It’s one thing to know an asteroid will hit the earth and kill us all in 7,000 years. It’s quite another to know it will hit in three days.

    The more immediate the problem, the less likely I’ll be able to solve it. The less likely my chances are, the more I’ll WORRY. Give us 2,000 years, and I’m sure we’ll figure out the asteroid thing. Give us three days, and that’s probably cutting it too close. This is why setting up a time limit, a ticking clock or ticking time-bomb, can ratchet up the audience’s tension.  Of course, it has to be a short time limit. You can’t start the bomb ticking, and give the lead 45 years to disarm it.

    3. Significant

    We talked about this before. It’s one thing to face the kidnapping of my pet spider. It’s quite another to face the kidnapping of my child. Significance increases when more is put at risk.

    The more significant the threat or opportunity, the more invested I become. The more I FEAR to lose.

    4. Specific

    It’s one thing to say that something bad is going to happen. It’s quite another to know that kidnappers are going to cut your finger off with a pair of wire dikes. It’s one thing to have someone say something good will happen (Chinese fortune cookie) and quite another to say your uncle just died and left you a million dollars, but you have to fight your three cousins for it.

    The more specific the problem, the easier it is for us to see the specific possibilities and react to them with HOPE and FEAR. Generalities don’t trigger emotions.  Striking snakes do, though. As do garbage disposals that are turned on just when you reach in to get the baby’s pacifier.

    Another part of this is to make the threat specific to the hero. It’s one thing to say a lot of people in the United States or Russia or India are going to die. It’s another to say the hero will lose his own child or wife in the event. In fact, the loss of one child can make the problem more intense that the loss of thousands.

    This is not to say you can’t write about threats to large groups of people. That’s one of the ways to broaden the scope of the problem and make it more significant. It’s just that problems become more intense the closer they comes to home. Things that threaten us personally, or those we love, raise more fears than those that threaten people we don’t know. A flood raging in the next county is different than the one coming down our street. So in story, the more personal you make the threat to the person we’ve invested in, the more intense the threat will be.

    Uncertainty

    Supporting all of this hope, fear, and worry is the fact that the reader is uncertain of the outcome. The character must have a chance to solve the problem up until the end, but for no extended period of time can it look like winning or losing is assured, because the moment the reader can predict the ending and the major turns along the way, that’s the moment they will lose interest.

    Think about this. It’s the first quarter of a football game, and the score is 64 to 0. Anybody sticking around for that one to play out?

    No, you can predict the ending. Why watch? Predictability kills hope, fear, and worry. It kills interest.

    So how do we make sure the reader is uncertain of the outcome?

    First, as stated before, we make the problem hard to solve. We’ll get into more specifics during the post on plot, but we make the problem harder to solve by giving our characters limitations, putting them into ongoing and continuing troubles, and making them face conflict with their own competing desires, other people in the story, and the setting.

    But there’s another ingredient. The second thing we do is introduce surprise. Surprise is one of the vital elements in story making precisely because it makes things unpredictable. It makes hope, fear, worry, and curiosity possible.

    There are two forms the surprise takes. The first is surprising or new limitations, troubles, and conflicts. New twists to the problem.

    Maybe we’ve seen lots of stories about assassins who need to go behind enemy lines. But what if we add a surprising conflict. What if our character is asked to sneak in and kill his sister? Or his mother? Or his best friend? Or the teacher he loves?

    What if our lead is not a highly-skilled CIA operative, but a child who has been trained for this, and not as a suicide bomber? Or a grandmother with no training at all who is forced into the situation?  What if the person she is supposed to kill isn’t in enemy territory but a religious leader or someone in our own government?

    Do you see? You simply twist the elements of the problem in new ways. While the situation may be similar, it’s not the exact same thing they’ve seen before, and so it prevents them from predicting how things will unfold. While they suspect what MIGHT happen, then don’t know what WILL happen.

    The next type of surprise is to simply introduce a turn into the story the reader cannot foresee. Again, this relies on reader expectation. So the sidekick we’ve lead the reader to trust turns out to be a traitor. The tactic that the reader has seen work so many times in other stories fails right off the bat in your book. In fact, maybe the whole plan fails. The villain finds out about the child assassin in the beginning and when he shows up, they’re waiting.

    Surprises give the story vital jolts of life. Set up a problem that has a new twist to it and give us some unexpected twists along the way during the plot.

    Developing a Story Problem

    Story problems are the engines that make stories go. They define where a story starts and when it ends. They do so because they generate hope, fear, worry, and curiosity. You might have great characters and a fabulous setting, but if your characters don’t face gnarly problems, readers will be unable to hope and fear for them. They will not worry. And they’ll soon tire of waiting for something to happen.

    When I’m developing the central problem of my stories, I find the most exciting possibilities when I think of possible threats/dangers, lacks/opportunities, and mysteries. My ideas start to really crackle when I think of ways to make those problems harder, more urgent, and the outcome more uncertain. When I do this, I find I never have to worry about knowing what to write next. The problems beg for scenes.

    It’s true that some delightful stories do not promise or deliver suspense and curiosity as their major delights. For example, in many mysteries, readers are not hoping and fearing as much as they are enjoying the character interactions or the humor. But even in those stories, hope, fear, and curiosity play a significant role. They often structure the novel.

    The bottom line is that suspense over a character’s fate (hope, fear, and worry) or the answer to an involving question (curiosity) is one of the key things readers come to our stories for. And all that suspense starts with problem. However, it can’t end there because readers won’t worry for just anybody. You have to have characters they can get behind. In the next post in the series, I’ll write about a number of Pareto factors that naturally invest a reader in a character’s fate.

    Notes

    *These notes might expand. For right now I just want to share the full Howard quote.

    “As we’ve seen, what the audience hopes for and what the characters hope for need not be the same thing. The same is true of our fears versus their fears. But how do hope and fear fit into the scheme of storytelling? Hope and fear are about the future. They derive from uncertaintly about future events in the story, future decisions the characters might make, future discoveries or revelations that might be unearthed, future outside forces and how they will influence the journey of the characters. When we discuss hope verusus fear in dramaturgical terms, this uncertainty is a function solely of the audience and its experience [my emphasis]. This is dramatic tension. We hope the man with the cobra in the shoe box won’t open the box; we fear he might and get himself or someone else bitten. We don’t know what will happen, but we know what might happen and therefore feel tension about those possibilities” (How to Build a Great Screenplay, 52).

    Parts in the The Key Conditions for Reader Suspense Series

    5. Scene  (coming soon)
    6. Development Tips
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    The Pareto Principle, Form Follows Function, and Story

    ByJohn Brown

    There are a thousand things to “remember” when writing story. New writers who make lists of these things soon begin to drown in them. But I’ve come to realize that many of these “rules” don’t matter.

    They don’t matter because many ignore the function of story. And so you can’t know how and when to apply them, or if they’re even something you should apply in the first place. Furthermore, a good number that do tie back to function often have little impact.

    The more I develop and write, the more I begin to see that the key is to focus on a liminted number of fundamentals. To focus on the things that matter most.

    So what really matters when you’re writing a story?

    I’m going to be speaking for an hour at the Book Academy tomorrow. It’s at Utah Valley University. The week after I’ll be presenting all day at the American Fork Arts Council’s autumn writer’s conference. I will probably write up all my thoughts and post them to my site at some time.  But for right now this is where you can hear them.  

    I truly believe the Pareto Principle applies to writing. But you can’t go searching for those vital few factors until you know the effects they’re supposed to produce. Form follows function. And the function is something that happens in the reader.

    Here’s a nibble. This quote from David Howard is an example of what I’m talking about.

    “As we’ve seen, what the audience hopes for and what the characters hope for need not be the same thing. The same is true of our fears versus their fears. But how do hope and fear fit into the scheme of storytelling? Hope and fear are about the future. They derive from uncertaintly about future events in the story, future decisions the characters might make, future discoveries or revelations that might be unearthed, future outside forces and how they will influence the journey of the characters. When we discuss hope verusus fear in dramaturgical terms, this uncertainty is a function solely of the audience and its experience [my emphasis]. This is dramatic tension. We hope the man with the cobra in the shoe box won’t open the box; we fear he might and get himself or someone else bitten. We don’t know what will happen, but we know what might happen and therefore feel tension about those possibilities” (How to Build a Great Screenplay, 52).

    Readers buy novels because novels provide a service. They provide something to the reader. They DO something to the reader.  That’s why readers pay good money for them, and stay up late at night (well past smart bedtimes) with them, and spend hours of their lives reading them.  

    What do stories do? What are the key factors that have to be present in the stories for them to be able to do these things? How do you help readers hope and fear for what might happen?

    I’m no story guru, but I do hope to share some of the vital few factors I see in the presentations I’ll be giving this week and next.

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    Jolie, Salt, & trading suspsense for surprise

    ByJohn Brown

    Last week I went and saw Salt. Wow. The movie started with a bang and was off to the races with lots of great action. Unlike many action films where the characters perform stunts which are simply too hokey for me to buy into, I found myself believing in all but two of Salt’s. So I was wowed most of the time instead of thinking about whether they were using wires or what or that it was all so wrong and geeze don’t these guys have consultants? They weren’t as stunning as the opening of Casino Royale, but what is? 

    But it wasn’t just action. The premise and acting were all great as well (yes, I recant, I slammed Jolie a while back as an actress cast only for her face value; and while you know that’s one of the reasons why she was here, she still was convincing in her role). Furthermore, the story had a lot of great reversals and reveals. But this was also its ultimate downfall.

    When I got to the ending, I did not feel a climax release. No catharsis. No afterglow. It just ended and left me feeling empty. It’s an awful feeling. Totally unsatisfactory. Such a maddening cut off. 

    But why? It was all so good up to that point.

    *** SPOILERS ***

    As I was talking it over with Nellie I believe I indentified the answer: in their effort to be surprising, the director and writers removed everything that would have built suspense. So instead of getting a Sixth Sense ending where the surprise adds to the climax and gives it a wonderful texture, we got a slap of surpise and then nothing.

    For me to feel relief, triumph, and the desire to stand up and cheer–all those great climax emotions–I have to be worried about a character. Stressed, thinking they’re going to fail. They need to fight courageously against insurmountable odds and actually come to a point where it appears all is lost. Where I groan inside. All this creates massive pent up worry and anxiety for them. And at that point, the character snatches victory from the jaws of defeat.

    Boom! The climax floods me and it’s delight, relief, cheer, joy.

    It’s just like a football game where we bite our nails until the very end. Where our non-ranked team is playing the #3 team in the nation. Maybe we jump ahead in the second quarter, but in the third we fall behind. We make some great plays but can’t catch up. And when we do put points on the board, the other team immediately responds. There are three seconds left. We’ve stalled at the twenty yard line. We have one more play. From the moment it starts it appears to be broken, our QB is going down, and then . . . he passes to a running back who has made some space. Who is standing open in the end zone! Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh!

    In order to feel a release a climax, something has to build up. The thing that builds is worry, fret, desperate hope. This is what we mean when we talk about suspense. We know the team’s goal, see their predicament, see the overwhelming odds. See them about to lose it all. The dread of defeat and what will be lost rises.

    But in Salt the director and writers went for the effect of surprise instead of suspense and triumph. The moment Salt starts in on the Russian president I thought she was the bad guy. Yes, there was the bit about the spider that had me wondering. Yes, I knew she felt anguish about her husband being killed (that smart little reveal in her expression). I knew all of that. But the movie kept me busy thinking she was the bad guy up until almost the very end. Everything in the film lead me to believe this. Not because I didn’t get it. I got it precisely. It’s exactly what the director wanted. It was the setup for the big surprise/reversal at the end.

    But when they went for surprise by not letting the audience know what Salt was really up to, the immediately removed the possibility of suspense. So I didn’t feel any suspense at her infiltrating the old group of spies. No relief at her killing them–that was just her revenge. No suspsense when she went to the White House. Nothing when she chased the president down the elevator shaft. The whole time I was thinking, crap, they really did indoctrinate her. She’s bad.

    More importantly, there was no rooting, no worry building to release proportions.

    Not until the very end do we realize what she’s been trying to do. Oh, the role reversal with her and Ted Winter (btw, like Liev Schreiber who plays the part) was all a big surprise, as it was designed to be. But the surprise faded and there was . . . nothing to replace it. That’s how surprise works. It’s a relatively short effect. 

    Yes, she kills Winter. Yes, he was a threat at the end with his scissors, but I didn’t care that much. I hadn’t been whipped into a fever pitch. Not like I was in Gladiator with the emperor and the lead in the coliseum. There was no pressurized worry ready to burst. There wasn’t any because we hadn’t had any time for it to build and because by that time nothing for Salt was really at stake. The one meaningful thing she stood to loose–her relationship with her husband–was taken away from us in an earlier scene when he was shot dead. So what was at stake? A big old nuclear war. Well, who cares about that? Nobody. It’s too generalized. We cared about Salt and her husband.

    The result was that the director and writers traded climax for surprise. Alas.

    So here’s my conclusion. Surprise is a relatively easy effect to create. You simply have something unexpected but logical occur. Relief, triumph, climax needs something much different. And surprise can be a part of it. But in our effort to build surprise we must not remove the conditions necessary for please-dear-mother suspense. Suspense requires we root for and worry about a character for a significant period, our unease growing until it’s drawn taut, straining. All the time something significant has to be at stake. Something we can sympathize with. Something personal to the person we care about. Only then can we feel the climactic release. Only then will we stand up and cheer in holy-crap-no-way relief and delight.

  • Wise reader instructions

    ByJohn Brown

    I value accurate reports from readers who are (a) in the audience for my books and (b) approach the book as honest readers, not critics, nigglers, axe grinders, toadies, or flatterers. I just want accuracy. In How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, Orson Card calls these types of folks “wise readers.” When I find one, I cheer because not every reader has time, ability, or interest. And their reports are usually very helpful.

    I know a lot of aspiring authors ask friends and family to read their work. And I know that many people can easily become wise readers with a little direction. So I thought I’d share with you what I ask of my wise readers. Maybe you’ll find it useful with yours. Here’s a revised version of a letter I just sent to one who has agreed to read draft 3 of CURSE. Every author’s a bit different in how they approach readers. Some just say, read it and tell me what you like and what you don’t. But I like to provide a bit more guidance. And I wanted to make sure this reader understood exactly what I was looking for. It might be a bit much for some, but I wanted to make sure it was clear since this was his first time reading a full book for me.

    Thanks so much for agreeing to read this draft! What I want at this point is to see how I’m managing the reader experience in 3 areas: (a) the characters, (b) each chapter and scene, and (c) with the book as a whole. So  I’m hoping you just read, and as you go along make quick marks or comments when you’re delighted or bumped. I’ve listed the types of delights and bumps I’m talking about below. Please know I’m not providing them for you to use as a checklist, i.e. it’s not my intent to have you actively search for these things like a Where’s Waldo. You may feel some of these things. You may not. I just want you to be aware of them in the back of your mind as you read and to note when you experience them. In the end, I simply want an accurate report of YOUR experience. Accuracy is key to me.

    I find with my own reading that it’s often hard to respond to the story as a regular reader if I’m always stopping to write lots of detailed comments. It seems to knock me out of the reader’s trance. So don’t feel like you must stop at the end of each chapter to assess your experience or be exhaustive in detailing your every reaction. Just make your quick marks and comments as you go, then review and write up your report when you’re done. If you feel the book’s too big to do it all at the end and actually remember what your marks and comments meant, then break it up into chunks of 100 pages or every few chapters. Whatever works for you. 

    Sometimes, despite our best wishes, we are just not in the audience for a specific book. If the book just isn’t working for you, do not read past the point where you would normally put it down. Pushing yourself beyond that point will only drive you nuts, and it won’t provide me with anything useful. So just stop there, be happy, and write your report. Remember: the most useful thing to me is accuracy. 

    As for the report, give me a summary of your general and specific reactions. For comments on specific parts or lines, it’s critical for me to know page numbers so I can go back and see exactly which part you’re talking about. Write your explanations on the specific page of the manuscript. They don’t need to be long. For example, if a page introduces too many names and you couldn’t keep track of the people and started to get confused, you might underline all their names and write “huh? too many names, can’t keep track.” If a character does something that makes you cheer, you could circle the paragraph and write “yes! yes! yes! Go Talen.” Just so that it’s clear to me what your reaction is and what your reacting to.  

    Please know whatever your reactions are, they are just as valid as anyone else’s. It’s my job to review all the reports and decide what they mean and whether they indicate I need to make any changes. Whatever I decide, know that it means a lot to me that you took the time to read and report with accuracy. 

    So, any of the following types of things count as bumps and delights. You might have others you experience as you read. Feel free to mark and comment for them as well.

    DELIGHTS
    I want to know what IS working with the characters, scenes, chapters, and plot as a whole. So any parts–story, people, or things–that elicit a strong reaction of the type you see below.

    Characters

    • You really like or enjoy them
    • Intrigued or fascinated by them, want to know more
    • Great lines
    • Envy them or think, oh man, that would be so cool to be able to do that or be there or have that skill/ability
    • Sympathize with, root for
    • Dislike, hate, root against

    Story

    • Suspense, anxiety, stress, dilemma
    • Curiosity
    • Mystery
    • Surprise
    • Cool!
    • Wonder or awe
    • Insight, poignancy
    • Sadness
    • Triumph, stand up and cheer moments
    • Laffs or grins
    • Dread, horror
    • Great action, stunts, adventure
    • Romance
    • Compelling “Dude!” chapter or scene beginnings, ends, and story turns

    Text

    • Vivid descriptions
    • Poetic beauty in the prose

    Overall

    • Did the story build well for you, bang bang in the climax, and then leave you wanting to linger and enjoy the rolling credits? Did it leave you feeling “wow” or “that was great?” If it didn’t quite make it, then give me an indication of how much on a scale of 1 – 10
    • What were the most interesting parts of the story for you?
    • Did you feel resolution and a strong tug to read more, come back to the world?

    BUMPS

    “Huh?”

    • It’s not clear what’s going on, who’s doing it, or why.
    • You really don’t understand something and you think you’re supposed to.
    • Too many terms, names, etc. and you’re getting lost or feel like you need a diagram.
    • The text itself doesn’t make sense, or it clunks badly.
    • The book contradicts itself.

    “Come on!”

    • Something just doesn’t ring true.
    • It’s just not how things work, e.g. John, there was no FBI in 1638 in China.
    • The character’s actions don’t feel logical given the situation, e.g. um, why would she do that? I’d just X and, boom, it would be over. She was stupid.
    • You just don’t buy some plot turn. It doesn’t make sense. Was too easy. Seems to ignore all sorts of things in the story.
    • A character is irritating or annoying you.

    “Yawn” or “What, that’s it?!”

    • Things are starting to get boring.
    • You start to skim the blah blah blah to get to the good stuff.
    • You were built up to expect something and instead got a fizzle. This could be some mystery, a character, an insight, conflict, the ending, etc.

    Please note that this list might change depending on the type of story I write. And the reader. For example, if I wanted a content or technical expert to report, then I’d be asking him or her:

    • Anything not ring true
    • Anything too cool or intriguing that I’ve left out.

    If the book was focused more on a romance, then I’d probably provide a slightly different list of delights. Horror would require yet a different version. Not too different. But the emphasis would probably be elsewhere. The key is in me knowing the type of experience (entertainment & drama) I’m trying to provide, what I’m trying to test, and giving the wise reader enough examples that they know what I mean by “delights” and “bumps.”

    EDIT: 11/27/12

    And here are the Beta Reader Instructions I gave to the latest batch of noble souls who offered to beta read BAD PENNY.

    Let me explain what I need you to do as a beta reader. This is basically a test screening. All I’m looking for is to have you give the novel a test ride, and then report back your experience. I’m not talking about giving feedback on small stuff like grammar and spelling. I’m talking about reporting your experience with the big story things like characters and plot.

    For plot, you simply report chapter by chapter if you were still interested and wanted to keep reading or if the story started to become a bit long (yawn). Were there any parts that stood out to you as particularly interesting, funny, heart-pounding, or suspenseful? Any that stood out as a bit dull or didn’t ring true?  Was the ending satisfying?  Did the beginning grab your interest? Anything you were uncomfortable with? There’s no wrong answer. It’s just a report of your experience. And an ACCURATE report is what I’m after.

    For characters, you report what you felt towards the main characters and any bit characters that stood out to you. Who was funny?  Who was likeable?  Who were you rooting for?  Who did you hate or fear or mistrust?  Were there any characters who are just so dumb or annoying you wanted to smack them? Where there any character moments that didn’t ring true or stood out to you as particularly entertaining? 

    Please remember: I want you to read only what you have time for AND interest in reading. If that’s one chapter, bully. Five, excellent. The whole thing, awesome. If you get a few chapters in and find it’s just not your type of story, that’s not a problem. Don’t read another word. Knowing that is helpful information as well. YOU determine the length of your test ride. I value whatever input you have to give. 

    I’m hoping to get all responses back by November 1. So send whatever you have by then.  Also because I will be shopping this to publishers, I must ask that you not copy, share, or distribute the manuscript in any way without my written permission.

    If I was looking for expert fact checking from one of the individuals, as opposed to a general story report, I’d add somethhing like this on the front.

    Let me explain what I need you to do. This is basically a test screening. All I’m looking for is to have you give the novel a test ride, and then tell me where it doesn’t ring true with your experience with [enter expertise] or where I’ve missed a detail that might be cool. Chapters 9-10 and probably 22-24 are the ones where your expertise with [enter expertise] would come in.

    If you think you’d like to provide input as a reader on the story as well, I would welcome that. I’m not talking about giving feedback on small stuff like grammar and spelling. I’m talking about reporting your experience with big story things like characters and plot . . .

    I’m hugely grateful to my beta readers. Some are shy about giving their report. Some aren’t. Either way I usually ask some clarification questions and then save all the gold they just gave me to use in my final draft.