Between the Writer and the Reader

Need A Bridge?

We’ll highlight two ways that the writer’s text can have a larger impact on the reader (or codeswitching into MFAtalk, to Show, to promote Feeling and Experience).

John Gardner lists as a glaring writing failure “the needless filtering of the image through some observing consciousness. The amateur writes: ‘Turning, she noticed two snakes fighting in among the rocks.’ Compare: ‘She turned. In among the rocks two snakes were fighting . . .’ Generally speaking—though no laws are absolute in fiction—vividness urges that almost every occurrence of such phrases as ‘she noticed’ and ‘she saw’ be suppressed in favor of direct presentation of the thing seen.”

And why is this important? The reader can feel, vividly, what the fictive world presents, but not if we run it through gauze.

The second is to provide the exact and significant detail that convinces the reader that they are there, living the fictive dream and experiencing authenticity. We go way back to the Elements of Style, with Mr. William Strunk. “If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is this: the surest way to arouse and hold the reader’s attention is by being specific, definite, and concrete. The greatest writers . . . are effective largely because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter.”

It is that attention to the right detail that succeeds, not long-winded narrative. When the writer uses the weak tool of rationality to convince the reader of how they should Feel—that leaves a limp response in the reader’s mind.

I’ve sourced these two points from Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction, the closest thing to an MFA in a single book we’ve seen. Go out and buy it, the tenth edition.