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| Revise for Your Reader's Experience đź’—
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August 21, 2020
Oakland, CA
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| | I’m staring at my WIP—work in progress. It’s final edits time. Fish or cut bait. It's time to make all those decisions I’ve been putting off.
How do I do that?
What’s important?
How do I know if my story is any good?
I need criteria. I need to get really clear about what my end goal is.
Again, how do I do that?
How do you do that?
I want to make the editing process conscious, so it’s not a big black hole of terror.
Over the years I’ve developed some principles that guide me through the confusing and overwhelming editing and revising process.
I’d like to share some key principles with you in the hopes you’ll take them and make them your own. And also because sharing them with you helps me see what I’m doing so that I may better wield these tools.
The main question I start with:
What experience do I want my readers to have while they read the book and by the time they get to the end?
In other words, what am I driving toward?
The answers depend upon the kind of story I’m creating, the genre.
When I speak of a genre I’m talking about reader expectations.
What are my readers expecting based on the genre I say the book is?
Get clear on this. Then you can meet and exceed expectations. Another way to characterize the expectations and get to the core of art and story is to focus on sensory details.
Readers read to feel, to go there.
We writers transport our readers evoking through words sensory details:
pictures, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings—physical and emotional.
What is the flavor, smell, feeling, soundscape, or taste you associate with each beat, each scene, each chapter, each act, and the book as a whole?
You don’t need to pick from all the senses. Just focus on a primary, and possibly, secondary sense.
For example, I’m writing a science fiction mystery with strong romantic elements. I knew I was creating this kind of book (and series, as I’ve written 4 books) from the start, but I needed to decided what proportions of each and what the reader expectations were for each.
During my first editing pass, I realized that I was creating a police procedural, with a science fiction backdrop where I could question society, all mixed with a secondary romance plot that impacted the resolution of the mystery.
The feeling I am exploring is grief: a bittersweet flavor, and the physical sensation of free falling yet at the same time being able to act upon the environment -- a dichotomy.
The soundscape is a fast-paced jazz with cross-rhythms that sometimes work together, sometimes against each other, a four-three cross-rhythm like in lots of West African music.
Bright primary colors that sparkle and shimmery, reflecting the rainbow at unexpected moments.
Textured and patterned fabric, like a pebbled velour or a woven reed mat or a Scottish tartan plaid of worsted wool.
The meal is an array of tasty appetizers that you nibble at a late night Parisian café with your friends while you sip exotic martinis.
I visit these sensory details as I revise and connect different ones to every beat, every scene, every chapter, every act, and for the story as a whole.
What is your guiding star? What are the sensory details that characterize the kind of story you’re working on?
Hit reply and let me know your thoughts on this topic. Or comment on this post. I’d love to hear.
Resource
In this editing class, I go through the 20+ senses we humans have and discuss how to use them to enhance your writing for a more powerful reader experience.
When we use sensory details for our point of view character, we invite the reader into their skin, so they can have the deep experience they desire.
Go here to check out this class:
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Need help perfecting your first chapter?
Then check out J. Thorn’s newest course: “How to Write a Scene” video course… instant, 100% free access.
No registration required. No email address required. No payment information required. Nothing to download. Nothing to install.
http://bethb.net/scenejthorn
Just scroll down, and you’ll see the button for the $0 product, and that’s how you can access the course.
That’s it! Now go make your scene great.
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| Have a happy and creative week!
All my best,
Beth |
| | PS. Ae you looking ahead for the fall and NaNoWriMo? I am! And I'm working behind the scenes on revamping my Plan Your Novel material and will let you know more soon. Stay tuned!
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| | | | | You have been reading the Creativity Sparks Newsletter!
Now in its 14th year, this newsletter is a service of my coaching and consulting business, helping genre fiction writers write, market, and publish their books through live and home study courses, a 12-month group program, and private consultations.
You may share this content intact and with no changes with this attribution:
c. 2006-2020 Beth Barany, Creativity Coach for Writers, www.BethBarany.com
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| ABOUT BETH BARANY
Beth Barany is creativity coach for writers, a teacher, workshop facilitator, and speaker, who helps fiction writers experience clarity, so that they can write and polish their novels, and proudly publish them to the delight of their readers.
Owner of the Barany School of Fiction, an online training hub, Beth takes great interest in how humans learn, create, and grow, and includes all her students’ life experiences, including the ancestors, into the moment.
Want a course to help you prepare to write your novel? Discover the comprehensive Plan Your Novel course here, co-taught with award-winning, bestselling thriller author, Ezra Barany.
She's also an award-winning novelist and writes magical tales of romance, adventure, and mystery to empower women and girls to be the heroes in their own lives.
Uncover her Henrietta series here (YA Fantasy) and her Touchstone series here (Fantasy/Paranormal Romance). And her new Sci-fi Mystery here.
beth@bethbarany.com
Barany School of Fiction
Writer's Fun Zone blog
Photo Credit: by c. 2018 Ezra Barany
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