Talking to the Reader

On August 30th, I will be speaking at the Park Forest Library at the Local Authors' Fair. I love getting a chance to talk with people who have read my works, but I really love getting a chance to talk with potential writers. My talk, "So You Want To Be A Writer...," will be all about the journey to being a writer, but deep inside, I will be quietly thrilled that I am also talking to my readers. And that got me thinking - what are the best ways for a writer to talk to the reader in their stories?

I am sure that more than a few of you are familiar with the Marvel character Deadpool of comic and movie fame. With no offense intended to Ryan Reynolds, for this particular piece I will mostly focus on the Deadpool of the comics, even though the movie version has the same mannerisms. The point is, Deadpool has this habit of talking directly to the reader, either with comments about our world, some reminder that he exists within a graphic novel, etc. This is called, "breaking the fourth wall," and it is what the character is known for - along with abundant gratuitous violence. Deadpool's habit of breaking the fourth wall was pretty unique when he was first introduced, but this quirk is far from new.

While I don't know the origin, breaking the fourth wall goes way back before my time - even Shakespeare used it with a device known as an aside. This is when a character on the stage would turn to the audience and make a deliberate, informative quip about the scene that was unspoken but brought something new for the audience to appreciate. Sometimes it was the character's insight, sometimes a statement about the hidden implications of an action. In any case, this device gives additional detail to the audience, be they reading the play or watching it performed on stage.

Now, for us writers, how can we talk directly to the reader? Well, we can write a story in the second-person, which is written like the main character is telling the story to the reader - a one-sided discussion of a series of events, perhaps even with the reader assumed to be part of the story. The Edgar Allen Poe classic, The Tell-Tale Heart, is also a way to do this, where the narrator is telling the story directly to the reader, trying to convince the reader of his own sanity. These stories speak directly to the reader, but are difficult to fit into a longer-form story.

Probably the most common, and the simplest way to talk to the reader is to get the reader involved with a character, then explore the character's thoughts, motivations, and most importantly, their doubts. This can create a form of engagement that lets a story remain in the first- or third-person, but quietly prompt the reader to think about a particular situation and consider their feelings about it.

Consider this piece of writing about a person trying to consider someone else's motives:

"I thought about the way Steve acted at the bar last night and different thoughts went through my mind. Perhaps Steve had too much to drink last night and let things get carried away. Maybe Steve just needed to blow off some steam and took it too far. I thought Steve had his act together, but now I  more to consider."

This gives us the inside view of our character's thought process, and informs us about the issues at hand, but does it really talk to the reader? It discusses issues but the reader remains emotionally at arm's-length. Now consider this rewrite:

"I thought about the way Steve acted at the bar last night and different thoughts went through my mind. Did Steve let things get carried away because he was drunk? Was Steve blowing off some steam and let it go too far? I thought Steve was cool - have I been wrong about Steve all this time?"

When these observations and considerations get turned into questions, the reader gets challenged as well. The reader now feels prompted to find an answer for themselves, even as the story goes on. In the reader's mind, they are thinking about just how they feel about Steve, and they allow this to affect their feelings as they read on.

Setting Steve aside, this is how we can talk to the reader without actually breaking the fourth wall. Questions that interrogate the character from inside also target the reader, and bring them closer to the story. The reader and the character might not even come up with the same answers, but now the reader has an opinion about the whole Steve situation, and they are further invested in the story. At that point, the writer has accomplished a big part of their mission - engaging the reader on another level. So, if there's a need to get the audience closer, tricks like that are subtle ways of deepening the engagement.

And so you know, Steve was clearly being a dick that night. No doubt about it.  

   

What A Writer Does

 I have said it on several occasions, and I will say it again: The main thing you need to do to be a writer is simply write. Write down things and stuff. Write down poems, describe people and items around the house. Write up a bunch of things that you want to do, see, touch, and why these are important. The Being a writer is about communicating through use of words the world around you. It's not that difficult, and once you get into the habit of doing it, you can call yourself a writer.

Now, I usually know the next statement. "Yes, technically, that makes me a writer - a person who writes. But how do I move up from being a writer to being... you know... a writer-writer. When is it more than just the act of writing? That's the real question - people want to know when they will be a person who takes words and creates something meaningful and moving with them. When can a person be the one who can give someone the gift of a story, and when the recipient receives it, they will treasure it? When does the magic start?

To find that, let's start with the different tiers of write. The first levels involve being basically a reporter. No, I am not implying or suggesting that news reporters and their ilk are low-level writers. I am merely saying that when we first start writing about things, we start writing about its basics: What is it? Where is it? We go through the basic who-what-where-when-why-how of identifying whatever we are writing about. This gives the reader a good feel for the subject at hand, but it is sterile, distant and unfeeling. Even a wild thing like a vivid, surrealistic dream will seem less-than-fantastic at this level. That kind of reporting identifies the subject or topic, but little else.

The next steps for the writer-in-the-making are about having an opinion or specific feeling about whatever they are writing about. In this regard, they install an emotion into the subject. For someone writing about an old car, the next step is to attach something to it that is beyond form and function. Is the car ugly or clunky? Does it chug annoyingly down the road or does the rasping of the tailpipe against the road grate on every nerve? Is it painted in a tired, lifeless gray or a loud, offensive orange? What makes that car stand out from the rest of the world? What makes it worth writing about versus every and any other item you see?

The biggest step is now engagement. This is where the writer finds the tone in themselves they want to use to communicate their feelings about the object. The first tier is writing about the item, the next tier is feeling something for the item, and finally the big step involves finding a voice that expressed those feelings. A voice is a broad brush, and can express both love and anger in the same tone. Finding one's voice requires bringing all of that writing through your emotional mind like an dirty, old Chevy going through a car wash. Voice turns writing into expression, not just about the subject but about the author as well. At this point, it's beyond communication because it appeals to the audience on more than one level. At this point, you are a writer-writer.

How long does it take? Well, how long you got? Or, more to the point, how much can you write? There are a lot of voices to discover, ways to express your interests and passions, and different kinds of cars to wash - so to speak. The main part is that it's an ongoing journey where you only stop progressing when you stop moving forward. So start writing, and really throw yourself into it if you want to get there faster.

Oh - and feedback helps. Get into workshops, have friends read your stuff, get critiques from outside sources. They can be harsh, but they provide you with growth and they help you be vulnerable, which is a priceless strategy in opening yourself toward the higher tiers. But most importantly, keep on writing.     

Radical Writing Still Needs a Few Rules

Rules. They're everywhere. Governments make them, parents make them, societies and cultures make them, and we make our own rules as well. And, as I have endlessly mentioned on this blog, there are rules for writing. Of course, just like all those other categories of rules, there also comes a time and place to break them (Disclaimer: I do not recommend breaking government rules). Sometimes we step out of those social and cultural norms, we go against our own best beliefs, and so on. We do the same thing in writing - we learn the rules, then figure out how to break them for full effect. This is the radical writing that can make reading interesting. However, it's not just breaking the law for entertainment's sake, and - believe it or not - you still need to follow other rules.

Proper adjective order

I've edited five manuscripts this year, each one a different length, style, and genre, and I guarantee you that none of them followed the same rules of style (Ultimately, they all answered to my editing rules, but the author has control after that). Depending on which editing conventions you prefer, you can choose the style pallet of MLA, AP, or any other that you stumble upon. They have different rules for the Oxford Comma, how to punctuate, and what gets capitalized or hyphenated. This is good to know and follow for consistency's sake.

(At my previous job, the company had its customized, time-honored gospel of style, which still, oddly, contradicted itself in various things such as the proper spelling of the word, "Euro-zone" - the hyphen was not always there, and sometimes it was two words, sometimes one.)

I bring up the company example to showcase the primary rule about breaking rules: If you go against convention, go against it consistently. If you capitalize titles, do it consistently and not just when you remember that's how you want to do things. when you list your adjectives, give them a marching order and follow it. And so help me, if you decide to go against colloquial references and be brutally detailed in your editing, then do it proudly, without shame. Example: Most people who love The Beatles would say, "The Beatles are my favorite group!" Grammatically, this is wrong. The Beatles is one group - singular - and it should be, "The Beatles is my favorite group!" Say that aloud a few times and it sounds just wrong. However, it is very much grammatically correct. Local convention, however, would use the plural incorrectly and everyone (present company excepted) would be cool with it. This is where you have to be consistent - either resort to what sounds right or go with grammatical purity (either is fine), but stick to it afterward.

Other opportunities to break the rules will come up, and you will have a choice to make. All I ask, from the desk of a humble editor, is to please be consistent with it. I am prepping for another manuscript review soon, and another set of rules to follow or break, and I hope they take this wisdom to heart.

    

A Few Comments About the Old Days

One of the many things I enjoy about the writing workshops I attend is the wide and varied observations I receive about whatever I bring for review. Whether it's a poem, an excerpt from a novel, an essay, short story, whatever - I get the advantage of a bunch of readers seeing it as something new and (hopefully) fresh, and providing insights I might otherwise overlook. This is even more helpful when I write stories from the deep, dark past that I call my life.

Now, you might ask yourself, "How can someone else help you write stories about yourself? You know the story far better than them, right? Maybe they should just take a seat and listen." Well, that first part is true, but while I know the story better than them, they need to be able to understand the story just from what I write. This is a difficult trick, and even more so when my job is not just to tell a story but to recall a particular era in my life and communicate it to them as vividly as possible.

Case in point: My current work in progress (WIP) involves a character going through life's challenges back in the 1990s, with flashbacks to the 1980s. Well, the storytelling is its own task. However, along with telling the story, I also need to give the reader the feeling of the 1990s in whatever way is best communicated. Do I need to talk about the Clinton presidency? Act out the Macarena? Have the characters argue about the movie, Pulp Fiction? Well, these things wouldn't hurt as long as they are properly incorporated into my WIP and don't stand out awkwardly as little timestamps for the reader. However, that's not the only complication.

With any dated reference, there also has to be a context explaining them in a way where people unfamiliar with the reference would still get the gist of what I was talking about. If, say, I made reference to the Macarena, I would have to do it in a way that tells any and every reader that this was a dance-craze in the US in the late 1990s that was a common reference even if not everyone knew how to do it. Readers who weren't even born in the 20th century would be able to understand this point well enough to incorporate the information into their understanding of the story, even if they still can't do the elaborate series of moves the dance requires.

I received this advice at a writing workshop when someone suggested I make reference in my WIP to a minor celebrity of the 1990s that everyone my age would know about (I'll leave the name out for reasons that would be obvious if I included it). Other people agreed, but some people pointed out that they had no idea who we were referring to. This was the teachable moment: If I were to include this celebrity's name, it would have to be in a way that included their claim to fame, thus informing younger readers about the salience of that reference. At that point, it gets a little tricky, and risks diverging from the story.

The reason I bring this up is as a reminder that stories in a particular era are far more rewarding when that era comes with all the trimmings and all the references of the time. When the reader not only reads about events in the late 1990s but feels the presence of that time, they engage with the writing on another level, and appreciate learning about minor celebrities who they might never have heard about in their regular life. And as I've said before, when a writer engages the reader on an additional level, they've done their job and they've won over the reader.

Okay, it was Lorena Bobbitt. The reference was about Lorena Bobbitt. Happy now?