Quick and Easy Writing Fixes

If you can’t put your finger on why your material isn’t working for readers—including agents, publishers, or producers—consider building better relationships with readers via relationship techniques on your pages.

I’m suggesting a technique that goes deeper than a mere “hook.”

A relationship is defined as a connection, association, or involvement. That can be with any “thing” or person.

The relationship might be a dependence, an alliance, or kinship or something that is the opposite. It captured your attention.

A relationship matters deeply EMOTIONALLY somehow. It speaks to our heart, our intellect, our experiences.

Readers want a relationship with your words. They want to feel.

On page one or two, bring your READER into a kinship or alliance with your character (or other being or entity, depending on story).

How do you do that?

Marry emotions and thoughts WITH action when you can (current or remembered action).

Reveal with few words WHY the character is acting or feeling something.

Choices abound as to how you create an instant relationship on pages one or two or anywhere in your material. If your book or script starts out well but you’re told it fizzles in its second half, then fire up better relationship material.

Here are categories of things humans have relationships with:

• People
• Place (any planet/home/space etc.)
• Weather
• Pets
• Nature (animals, plants, microbes etc.)
• Job
• Hobby
• Art
• An object
• Time
• Special dates
• Religion
• Organizations

Relationship material might come from backstory. Don’t be afraid to mine it on any page including page one. Get the big emotional intrigue in there fast. (There are no rules, so if you’ve been told repeatedly backstory has to wait until later, now make your own rule. Teasing something or flirting with it is part of building a solid hook relationship!)

In any of those categories listed, what worries your character? Mention it on pages 1, 2, and 5 or pages of your choosing. Sharing worries is one of the quickest ways to establish a relationship.

Was your character ever embarrassed by something? Or are they afraid something from their past has now come back to haunt them? Put it on page one. It will resonate.

Relationship information gives readers PROOF your character is somebody worthy of a connection.  

Be careful your character isn’t merely moaning about things without much reason. Readers don’t like trite reasoning or whiners, but through any number of techniques whining, too, can be elevated to work well to kick off a book. Sometimes whining is comical.

Confessions are another relationship-building technique with readers. “The day I made the biggest mistake of my life with…” is a beginning sure to make us read on. We’ve all made some mistake or we fear making mistakes. When we IDENTIFY with the mistake, you’ve created a relationship with readers.

What would help readers identify with your characters and stick with them after page one?

For examples of “relationship building” on early pages, study openers of major award-winning or talked-about novels, screenplays, and memoirs. Study the emotional resonance. Is it a word or phrase? An action or reaction? A piece of information? Notice the “feeling” you get. Why are readers drawn to the words?

Your writing will be rewarded by readers when you take the time to build RELATIONSHIPS via your words. 

In Barbara Kingsolver’s award-winning Demon Copperfield the character tells us his regrets immediately, including being born under the caul. As the novel moves along, the boy expresses other regrets.

In Richard Osman’s popular mystery, The Thursday Murder Club, residents at a retirement village and a police officer let readers into their minds and hearts by revealing their regrets in life.

In both cases, without us knowing the characters’ regrets those novels would feel hollow or thin. The plots would have sagged. Regrets are the impetus for CHANGE and ACTION in those characters’ lives.

For a motion picture example, consider The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland. After Dorothy lands in Oz, she has many regrets along the way about things she’s said and done that may have harmed others in Oz or back home. Without her regrets, the storyline would lack potency.

Humans often have regrets. A talented writer brings those experiences into the storytelling.

What do your characters regret? Why?

In my Fudge Shop Mystery Series the character of Ava Oosterling has many regrets—failing a job, experiencing a one-month marriage, and living far away from her best friend and family in Door County, Wisconsin, for ten years. She regrets her impulsive nature bringing trouble. She’s a character always in search of her true and better self.

Is a “wistful regret” the same as the “oh-woe-is-me” pity party? No! A meaningful regret is instead an excellent backstory element. A wistful regret is connected solidly to the changes your character needs to make.

A “wistful regret” is not always based on mistakes. It can be about remembering a missed opportunity long ago or yesterday.

What matters is the regret fuels change NOW in your story. Being “wistful” is not so much melancholy as a yearning to do better and acting on that feeling. Being wistful means wishing.

A regret means the character acknowledges a mistake, or an embarrassment, or a road not taken. A regret can be funny or sad, happy or tragic. It’s your call.

The “wistful regret” is powerful, weighty stuff, and wears on a character; it may take a few chapters or scenes to be acted upon or resolved.

Wistful regrets create the spark for a character’s energy that enables meaningful change through actions or otherwise. That change in turn creates an effective story.

For deeper characterizations, regrets should plague your protagonist (and/or antagonist) at least a little bit. Mentioning the regret only once in a 300-page manuscript usually isn’t enough. Try the “Rule of 3” for places the regret can show up and help fuel decisions and action.  A “Midpoint Crisis” is a good place to consider bringing up regrets.

If your storytelling isn’t catching fire with readers such as critique partners or agents or producers, try infusing your opening pages with a “wistful regret.”

You won’t regret it.

Writers want their stories to have “impact” somehow. 

Having “impact” means your words have the power to move emotions, to produce changes in readers’ thinking, or produce enjoyment. Having an impact might mean readers tell other readers about your writing.

When I’ve worked with writers, the word “impact” is rarely voiced by the writer, and yet, that’s what the writer wanted. They wanted to know their writing was good, that it would be appreciated by somebody.

The writer wanted to make an impact on somebody with their own writing. How about you?

Having an impact is a promise writers must make for themselves. It means you say to yourself, “Every time I write the next thing, I’ll try my best to be better somehow.”

Having an impact can take several forms.

You or I might want the reader to laugh, cry, think more deeply, be entertained, become wiser, and so on.

So, first, decide what you like about your own writing. And really like it!

Do more of what you love to do with your writing. Hone it. Be the very best at it you possibly can be. Do you like jokes? Do you like history? Do you enjoy writing about romance? And so on. Find your voice, then DEVELOP your voice. With “voice” comes impact.

Being “impactful” with your writing also means being darn serious about what you believe in about your writing, yet leaving room for changes or improvements. If you love really long sentences and paragraphs, for example, are you making them impactful? How?

Writing is part art. But to have impact we also have to pay attention to fundamentals of punctuation, sentence structures, phrasing, paragraphing, and so on. Get the fundamentals wrong and you lose your impact entirely.

Having an impact means being brave enough to finish something. Stop dawdling because you fear what comes after finishing your novel or memoir or other project. You might be scared, but every writer is scared at some point. If you want to have an impact in this world, writers must be BRAVER at times. Reach out to fellow writers or groups to help you.

Making your writing impactful means STRETCHING. Try incorporating new words you’ve never used before. Try different styles.

Try writing in a genre you’ve not yet attempted, even for one chapter. How does that feel? Nothing is lost if you decide to shelve that attempt; instead you flexed your writing muscles. You’re now wiser, more capable of having an impact with your writing.

Every great writer I’ve read or worked with or heard speak at a conference made an impact with their writing by doing this:  THEY TRIED HARD TO DO A GOOD JOB.

Bestselling books aren’t just those on the so-called bestseller lists. A bestselling book is the one that made an impression on you or other readers. It had IMPACT. It was memorable. And the reader told other readers about that book.

As you write or revise, think about how you are creating your own IMPACT on readers.

What’s impactful on your pages?