TECH: Keeping Your Readers Hooked! (Moldy Oldie!)

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Original Posting March 3, 2016

Writer's Digest, April 2001, p. 35, 36, and 62, had an article by Joe Cardillo with the title, "3 Ways to Keep Your Readers Hooked." Basically, Joe is pointing us at an approach to keeping a reader's attention, similar to training a puppy! That's right. Three steps: arouse interest, delay (tease), and reward. Simple, right?

So, how do you arouse interest? Give details that make the reader ask questions. Bait! But then delay. Don't give it to them right away. Get them turning pages, give them a chance to try to guess what the answers are. And, when you do get around to answering -- set those hooks again! More details, more question, keep them coming.

Flashbacks make a fine delay, incidentally.

And the reward! Reveal the secret, open the box, show us what is going on.

So, the strategy is simple. Arouse the reader's attention, maybe with a glimpse of what's coming. Then delay, tell us about the history, setting, and whatever. And... satisfaction! We got the reward. But there's more waiting just around the corner, over the edge of the cliff...

Practice? Heck, just take a few characters and a scene, and consider how to get us hooked into wondering what is going on. Then describe the background and whatever else you want. And... reveal the secret and reward us.

Three steps to attention!
Write!
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EXERCISE: The People Who Live in Boxes?

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Original Posting March 22, 2016

Here you go. Take a set of characters, and have them deal with their home being taken away, by a forced move. Maybe the landlord has decided that the apartments are going to go condo, or the government has chosen to put a road through right here, or something or other has come up. Your protagonists have a month, more or less, at your choice, to pack up and move.

Do they pick up stacks of boxes at the grocery, and pack, and pack, and pack? Consider having them digging through the stuff that's been stacked in the closet, and what hidden memories and treasures do they encounter there? What goes in the boxes, and what goes in the trash?

What do they do with those old VCR tapes of the Brady Bunch? How about 45 RPM records? Or what about all those ancient photographs of people that they don't quite recognize in some cases?

Anyway, have your protagonists pack up and move. With all the regrets, the memories, and the piles and piles of boxes.

Just one of those changes that life brings us. Write about it!
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TECH: Twelve Archetypes?

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Original Posting March 28, 2016

Over here http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/the-twelve-archetypes/ Howard Tayler, of Schlock Mercenary fame, talked about an odd encounter that one of his writing chums had at a conference. Apparently they were challenged by someone pushing writing tutorials about whether or not they knew The Twelve Archetypes (which I assume must be capitalized, and probably enunciated in hushed tones, as if referring to the 12 apostles or some other rulers of the universe?).

Anyway, Howard had fun with trying to match up the 12 archetypes with some regular names, in the attempt to come up with a mnemonic (a memory device) so that we could all easily remember them. For example, the Monarch turns into the ruler. He's looking for arc, arch, or ark words, names, phrases that remind you of the actual names. Now, I'll slip you the 12 archetypes, okay? All you need to do is add names or phrases. I'll even give you one of Howard's to help get you started.

1. Innocent -- Joan of Arc
2. Orphan
3. Warrior
4. Caregiver
5. Seeker
6. Lover
7. Destroyer
8. Creator
9. Ruler
10. Magician
11. Sage
12. Fool

Go ahead and have fun. What are your 12 arch names for the archetypes?

Bonus points? Sure. What roles in life are missing from this list? E.g., I notice that there's no real slot for the brother, sister, parent, or other family relative? I guess you can argue that's a mixture of caregiver and maybe some other roles, but let's face it, the relationship between siblings does have its own dynamics.

Better yet, take three from the list and consider what happens when they run into each other. Or what happens when the innocent must become a ... ? Go ahead, have fun with that list!

Oh, incidentally... WRITE!
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EXERCISE: In dreams?

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Original Posting April 2, 2016

Over the years, I've had various folks recommend a dream journal. The idea is that when you wake up at night, you scribble some notes on your dreams. And hope that they make sense in the morning!

I have to admit, most of the time my dreams slip away from me. Although sometimes I do manage to wake up with a fragment stuck in my head, and I do try to scribble some notes. Anyway, how about picking a number from 1 to 6?

Now here's a fragment from one of my dreams that you've picked.

1. A group of Wolfmen and a protector. Is he protecting the Wolfmen or the humans?
2. A big book with a cover with Velcro on it that's sticking to things.
3. A pot full of sausage stew
4. Hitting a Frankenstein dog, sewn together out of various parts, with a stepladder
5. Bleeding blisters on someone's leg, and trying to find a Band-Aid to lend them
6. Giant gray pine cones with mouths full of teeth, eating their way up something. We were trying to climb the trees and kick them away, but they grabbed someone's foot.

Please don't dream analyze or psychoanalyze these, okay? I really don't want to know :-)

Your task, should you choose to try it, is to add setting, characters, and whatever else you like, and stretch that fragment into a scene or even a whole story. Simple, right? It's just a dream. So go for it.

Write!
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EXERCISE: The Odd Couple

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Original Posting April 25, 2016

Sorry about the quiet. Unfortunately, I've been traveling and then we moved, and network access has been limited. After moving, in fact, we've spent a week without telephone or network! It's interesting to unplug, but it does make you appreciate the kind of access that we tend to take for granted. Fair warning, we're supposed to get telephone and network service again tomorrow!

Many of you probably remember the TV show, with the slob and the neat freak trying to live together? That dynamic of a mismatched pair is a good one to consider when you're setting up characters for your story. Perhaps not quite so obviously, but having people who have some kind of a built-in conflict -- political beliefs, religious beliefs, the artist and the cold rationalist, even Jack Spratt who could eat no fat and his wife who could eat no lean -- they all can provide a fun kind of interaction in your story.

So, take a character, then consider what traits could be reversed or inverted in some way, and what happens to your story when the dynamic duo at the heart of it can't stand each other!

Okay? Write!
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