The Journal: How to Ground the Reader

In today’s Journal

* Quotes of the Day
* Topic: How to Ground the Reader
* Of Interest

Quotes of the Day

“[Patterson’s] a-ha moment in terms of efficiency, he explains, came while writing 1993’s Along Came a Spider: Rather than fill out the story he’d outlined, he decided the outline was the novel.” Mark Athitakis reviewing Patterson’s memoir James Patterson by James Patterson

“Character voice bubbles up organically when every aspect of the story is seen through a character’s-eye view….” Lisa Poisso

Topic: How to Ground the Reader

I’ve said many times before that grounding the reader in the story is essential. You can’t do that with a massive explosion or the sqealing tires of a high-speed chase in the opening sentence of the story.

Good stories don’t really “start with the action.” Even the stories you believe started with action actually opened a few minutes or seconds before the action in order to ground you in the story. (Go look if you want. I’ll wait.)

In the opening, we introduce the POV character, let the reader see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the setting, give the reader a sense of the emotion the POV character is experiencing (frustration, joy, weariness, etc.) and then drop the bomb or have the bullet ricochet off the door jamb or whatever.

I’ve often suggested writers should take their time with description. Don’t rush through it. Describe everything through the physical and emotional senses of the POV character.

A pair of simple rules

1. If the POV character notices (sees, hears, smells, etc.) something, write it down no matter how insignificant it might seem to you. But more importantly,

2. If the POV character DOESN’T notice something (but you, the writer, do), DON’T write it down no matter how important it might seem to you. That’s your conscious, critical mind trying to eke its way into the story.

Now comes the Writers Helping Writers website and a post titled “3 Ways to Infuse Character Voice” written by Lisa Poisso. I first found an excerpt of the post on The Passive Voice, but since the source was WHW I was skeptical to say the least.

But this is a very good article. It says pretty much the same thing I’ve been saying, but in slightly different words and from a different perspective, so maybe it will resonate with you.

There are some small parts of the article I do not endorse (like that silliness about knowing your characters’ histories in advance [= conscious, critical mind]), but otherwise it’s a good article.

For example, the author of the post makes a point of explaining that what you, the writer, “notice” in a setting will be different from what the POV character of the story notices in the same setting because

“Everyone sees the world through the lens of their own mindset, a potent brew of knowledge, experience, motivations, goals, preferences, hopes, fears [and so on].”

But what if you have two or more POV characters? Maybe you switch PsOV at a break in the chapter or from one chapter to the next. That’s perfectly acceptable. Again, the simple rule from above applies. What one POV character notices will be different from what another POV character notices.

I hope this helps. Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “The aliens are all hanging out on Dyson spheres…” at https://www.space.com/aliens-hiding-on-dyson-spheres-around-white-dwarfs.

See “James Patterson shares his formula…” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/james-patterson-shares-his-formula-for-success-its-pretty-simple/. Be sure to see PG’s take.

See “3 Ways to Infuse Character Voice” at https://writershelpingwriters.net/2022/06/3-ways-to-infuse-character-voice/. Thanks to PG for the tip.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 580 words

Writing of Blackwell Ops 8 (tentative title, novel)

Day 1…… 2371 words. Total words to date…… 2371
Day 2…… 1305 words. Total words to date…… 3676
Day 3…… 1107 words. Total words to date…… 4783
Day 4…… 1201 words. Total words to date…… 5984
Day 5…… 1872 words. Total words to date…… 7856
Day 6…… 2505 words. Total words to date…… 10361
Day 7…… 3581 words. Total words to date…… 13942
Day 8…… 2147 words. Total words to date…… 16089
Day 9…… 1714 words. Total words to date…… 17803

Total fiction words for June……… 11819
Total fiction words for the year………… 23596
Total nonfiction words for June… 4540
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 85150
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 108746

Calendar Year 2022 Novels to Date…………………… 0
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 66
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31

Disclaimer: I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. I’ve never said WITD is “the only way” to write, nor will I ever. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among other topics.