PROMISES AND FICTION

The arrival of the New Year is generally filled with promise and promises. We resolve to make proactive changes, to be more forthright, to be more generous, healthy, and happy. We resolve to follow our dreams, set goals, and pursue our purpose. These are all very good things.  Whether we do them or not is another matter.

Writing fiction is essentially an ongoing promise to your audience. You can lead your reader anywhere as long as you’re consistent. If you introduce a fictitious world based upon werewolves and demons, you can feel confident that the reader will “buy in” as long as you stay true to that world. If suddenly one of your werewolves goes against the grain of the world you’ve created – begins singing at the moon instead of howling at it because it fits some plot twist you can’t resist throwing into your story – then the potential of losing your reader, rightfully so, is high.

The promises we make to ourselves have to come from a place of self-honesty. You can’t change your diet because your wife wants you to; the decision has to be yours. As a writer, you have to be equally as honest with your reader about the plot you’re developing or the character you’re portraying. Yes, the plot still has to evolve and the character must change according to that evolution, but these things have to happen in line with the promised world you’ve created.

Promises require commitment, if in fact you intent to keep them. You set a goal. You write it down. It becomes part of your daily routine. As a writer, you drop your reader into a new world. You set rules for that world.  You stick to those rules. That’s the promise you make to your audience every time you sit down to write.

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