Striking a balance

Most of us would agree that order and chaos are on the opposite ends of a contin­uum. Orderly behav­iour tends to equate with stabil­ity while erratic behav­iour is chaotic. These opposites could be described as formal versus ad-hoc, rigid or flexi­ble, dicta­to­r­ial as opposed to anarchic. When it comes to writing, predictable and unpre­dictable seem to be useful terms.

What are expect­ing when we read a book? Predictable outcomes or unexpected ones? If the text is too predictable we get bored, or even worse, annoyed. We give up. Too many plot twists or charac­ter shifts produce the same results. Either way, the author seems to be trying to be too clever, or too boring, too obscure, too distant, too aloof. Too…awful.

How can a writer strike a balance? Moving away from order means creat­ing varia­tion — chang­ing sentence lengths or struc­ture, shift­ing points of view, alter­ing scenes, unexpected situa­tions — are all ways of creat­ing inter­est. Betsy Warland, poet, mentor and manuscript consul­tant I worked with during and after The Writer’s Studio at SFU has written an superb book Breath­ing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing that examines many of the funda­men­tal techniques and consid­er­a­tions that writers must come to terms with if they are to success­fully engage readers. Proxim­ity is a term she uses to explain how a reader feels positioned to the writing. Has the author drawn me into the scene almost as a partic­i­pant, or have they made me feel like a detached outside observer? Do I have a gut reaction to this charac­ter, or do I feel distant from them? As Warland  points out, these experi­ences of proxim­ity are not random responses, but rather something a writer has consciously created during the act of writing.

“Respect your reader,” writing instruc­tors often tell their students. What they mean is pay atten­tion to how a person will read your work. If a reader is on page two of your book, all they know for certain is what you’ve told them thus far. Based on what you have (or haven’t) told them, most readers will have made  several assump­tions already, assump­tions about where the story is headed, or who is telling the story, or what this or that charac­ter it like. As the writer, you know much more about your story and charac­ters than the reader does at this point, but if you’re not careful, your reader may not stay with you long enough to find out. You may forget to tell them some impor­tant detail that they need to make the shift into the next chapter, or added some extra extra­ne­ous infor­ma­tion in a scene that confuses them. Like Anton Chekov said, “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is think­ing of firing it.”

What keeps readers engaged? Setting up a regular rhythm with not too many or too few shifts can work. But above all we must avoid repeti­tion; readers can smell a formu­laic approach miles away. There’s no doubt readers tend to like (and even need) consis­tency and reliability.When one charac­ter is talking (or think­ing)  we (as readers) need to be certain we know who we’re listen­ing to. Too much varia­tion in a character’s speech patterns or point of view, and it’s game over. One of the first things we do when we start a new book is to try to get (pardon the pun) a read on a charac­ter and an author. We demand certainty about whoever is telling us the story. I there is any waver­ing in our belief in that voice, our guard is up and the author is in danger of losing us.

Unfor­tu­nately too much consis­tency will turn a reader just as quickly. A few unexpected words in a sentence, or a surpris­ing event or action can pique a reader’s inter­est — but only if that reader find it credi­ble. If not, red flags go up. This is one of the many dilem­mas all writers face — how to put ourselves in the minds of all poten­tial readers out there at once.  Seems hopeless, but all good writers have figured out how to do it.