Guest post on Writer Unboxed
Yall know how cooooool it is to post on WU, right? It’s the site I went to when I was dreaming about writing, looking for that nugget that would help me better make what was in my head into what was on the page. Well, today I had a guest post run on WU. It’s a thrill almost as cool as landing an agent or getting an offer. Personally, it’s a big big deal. It’s the best I’ve written about writing, I think,
The post is about tension and bad guys in your fiction. It’s created a heckuva good showing for comments on a Saturday. Check it out here.
Here’s the intro…
How do you make your reader bite her nails so hard she doesn’t know what she’s doing until two knuckles are gone? Let’s frame the question.
Our impulse as writers is to think of something interesting, tell the reader, hey, check out this interesting situation—a boy feels this way; a girl feels that way—and then wonder why our beta readers tremble in the corner and won’t make eye contact.
The reason “show, don’t tell” is the First Rule of Fiction is that showing accomplishes something telling doesn’t: no matter how precisely we draw a picture, we are still forcing our reader to interpret it. “Show don’t tell” creates reader engagement; it compels her to think, to ponder, to test hypotheses.
So what does an engaged reader asking questions have to do with tension? Bear with me just a little longer, and let’s expand focus.
Sometimes we find ourselves writing dinner table scenes because they’re comfortable. However, if there isn’t a bomb under the table, or a pistol in Mom’s bra holster, or at least Mom daydreaming about her Sicilian lover—something with latent tension—we’re probably boring the reader.
