Empowering the Reader

I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes readers lean in. Recently I gave some writing of mine to a friend with whom I regularly share work and he said something very helpful in response. ‘There are two writers in you,’ he said. ‘The Susannah who’s kind and wants to make sure everybody’s okay and they understand and none of them have been left behind, and the Susannah whose stories run deep and strange and who follows her instincts, trusting her readers to follow.’ I won’t be surprised if you can guess which writing he prefers.

Think of the books you treasure. Think of your experience in reading them. I doubt it was an experience in which you knew at every second what was going on, what this character or that character felt or was going to do next, or what was about to happen. You had ideas, of course; you had your theories. You were trying to guess all the time, trying to figure out who this person was and whether they were going to do what they should, what you wanted them to do, or not. But you were reading to learn.

Think of the books you didn’t enjoy. The books you didn’t finish. What was that experience like? Did you tend to know exactly what each character was feeling - often because the writer had told you? Could you predict what was going to happen by the end of the book, and most of the chapters in between? Was there anything you didn’t know, really?

It’s so easy to over-explain in a first draft. So don’t beat yourself up for it. In a first draft you are figuring out these things for yourself: the story, the world, its characters, what they feel, what they want. It’s inevitable you end up showing your work. But a really important task when you go back over a first draft (and consequent ones) is to make sure you’ve left some room for discovery. Some room for the reader to wonder and make up their own minds.

You know what’s going on, you know what’s going to happen. 

But you don’t want your readers to. 

You want them to be grounded in some kind of understandable space and time, for the duration of a scene. In other words, they know they are in a toilet at the train station with the protagonist and her best friend, and the train they are both about to catch is arriving in five minutes. That kind of clarity is crucial. 

But maybe leave me wondering a little about the friendship between these two, what each of them feels about this trip they’re going on, about each other, about what they’re up to. Leave me a little unsure. Leave some room for doubt. Does the protagonist really trust her friend? From what she’s saying and the way she’s keeping herself and her luggage a little apart, maybe not…Does the friend have a crush on the protagonist? Is that why they’re going? Is that why the friend keeps asking questions about the protagonist’s relationship with her ex? (Don’t tell me, though, unsettle me.) And why is the train station so empty on a Saturday afternoon, and now the train hasn’t come? Does that mean something bad had happened or is about to? (I’m going to have to keep reading to find out.)

Here’s a brief extract from a mastery of mystery, Kazuo Ishiguro. Threaded with an example of how too much taking care of the reader might dull this story for a reader. (Sorry, Mr Ishiguro…)

This is the opening paragraph from Ishiguro’s most recent novel: Klara and the Sun. My additions aren’t italicised.

When we were new, Rosa and I were mid-store, on the magazines table side, and could see through more than half of the window. We were AFs, artificial friends, robots that had been designed to be companions to humans. Through the window we were able to watch the outside of this late 21st century city - the office workers hurrying by, the taxis, the runners, the tourists, Beggar Man and his dog, whom we saw every day in the same spot, the lower part of the RPO Building. After a few months, once we were more settled, Manager allowed us to walk - we were energised by large lithium batteries inside our chest cavities and our walks could be individually programmed – up to the front until we were right behind the window display where more favoured AFs stood, and then we could see how tall the RPO Building was. And if we were there at just the right time, we would see the Sun on his journey, crossing between the building tops from our side over to the RPO Building side. RPO stood for Robot Protection Organisation*, Manager told us. She had short blonde hair and kind eyes, but she couldn’t be trusted. 

I hope it’s clear what a brilliant writer Ishiguro is, and what a mess I have made of this opening paragraph. Over-helping the reader is particularly debilitating at the start of a story, and particularly tempting because you are so keen to show all your exciting story ideas and what they mean all at once. But then what will you do? Where does the reader have left to go? What the reader wants is to live the story alongside the characters, to discover what the characters do as they do (or possibly a few pages in advance). 

I have been working with a writer recently on a wonderful book about the crisis now threatening the survival of Asian elephants in India, as well as about the personal journey the writer has gone on in her first-hand exploration of this issue. The manuscript begins with a prologue, plunging us directly into a field in the middle of the night where villagers are setting off cannons and fireworks in an attempt to scare off a tusker male elephant who is eating their crops. The setting is akin to a war zone, and a great place to plunge me into the story. We hear the author berating herself for dropping her camera in alarm at the burst of a cannon, and her doubts about how she has ended up here, in this dark, remote field in the middle of India, surrounded by wild elephants likely to stampede, the only female and the only Westerner, too frightened to get the shots she has come to get. 

Then she gives us, in two very well-written paragraphs, a concise over-reaching summary of the ecological and sociological crisis that has developed between Asian elephants and the people in India with whom they share the land.

No! Besides the fact that I am going to be fed this information again, via multiple sources throughout the book, I really don’t want it now. Because I too am wondering about this unlikely scenario: what a woman like this is doing in the middle of a dark field in India with the cannons shooting off and trumpeting elephants, and I want to find out for myself, by reading the book I have in my hands. I want to go on the same journey she did. I want to start out knowing nothing and learn with her.

I hope that makes sense to you. Unfold your story bit by bit. Keep your reader guessing - that’s the wonder and delight of a good read.

*It doesn’t, in case you’re planning on reading this book. I’ve completely made that up.