EDITED OUT and Audiences

Jeff Cohen

First, the pitch: EDITED OUT, the second Mysterious Detective mystery, is in all likelihood now available. In this one, Rachel Goldman is trying to adjust to the living, breathing incarnation of her fictional creation Duffy Madison, but she doesn't really want to. When Duffy arrives with a proposition--that they investigate the disappearance of a man Rachel thinks might have been Duffy's previous identify--she's not pleased, but she goes along. After all, this situation is making it harder for her to write new Duffy books.

"The audience are being worried about, petted and nursed along while pieces of plot are being thrust into their minds."--Alfred Hitchcock

Probably available now!

Writing, it has been noted in this space and countless others, is not a group activity. Writers tend to work alone. But we are never really by ourselves when we're working, or the work will certainly be less than it should.

Any form of entertainment--and I will eschew the "entertainment-versus-art" argument for what we crime fiction writers do for the time being--needs to be concerned with its ultimate consumer. People will tell you to write for yourself, to keep yourself interested, and that is important to the process. But if you ever--ever--lose sight of the fact that someone else will be reading this work when you're done, you are in danger of becoming self-indulgent and, worse, boring.

Because I most often write in the first person my characters can talk directly to the reader. That's one way I use to keep the reader engaged, to make him/her feel part of the storytelling process. There are plenty of others, but the point is that it's vital to maintain that connection.

When I write I'm always thinking about the reader. Yes, part of the mental gymnastics involved in writing require me to imagine myself into the situation and the character's thoughts. That seems exclusive of the reader's perspective because my imagination is absorbed in the reality of the moment I'm writing. 

But I am also the reader's advocate. I have to consider such concerns as what they know, what they don't know yet, what I'm going to tell them, how they're feeling emotionally and what is lurking just around the corner. Yes, the audience is being worried about, petted and nursed along. It's essential to the work unless you're writing something you're never going to show to another human being. (It's okay if you show it to your dog, but make sure you have a spare copy.)

If you lose sight of your audience (reader), they'll know it. They'll feel abandoned or confused. They'll lose interest in your characters and your situation and before you know it, they'll have moved on to a TV show, Facebook or the countless other books they could be reading instead of yours. You can't let that happen. You need to be concerned with your audience.

I never lose sight of the fact that anyone who picks up my book and starts to read it has made a very specific choice that honors at least a part of what I do. Even if it's just the title or the cover (which I don't do) that catches the reader's eye, that person has chosen to focus on what I wrote instead of the enormous number of choices every one of us has on a given day to spend our time. That's a huge responsibility for me, and even if the style seems sort of improvised (it often is) or effortless (never), you can rest assured that the whole time I was writing it, I was thinking about you or someone like you.

The reader is never alone, either.

Comments

[Lynne Patrick]

An author I respect greatly once told me the secret was to make sure the reader's eye never stops moving along the page. If it stops, whether it's to wince at an inappropriate word, marvel at a beautifully turned sentence, or worst of all make the reader head for the dictionary, you've lost. I'd say that goes double for crime fiction. Style has to be invisible. Would you agree, Jeff?

[Jeff Cohen]

I would not say that style has to be invisible, but it must seem natural. If you don’t laugh at the jokes in my book because you don’t notice them, I haven’t done my job right. But if it seems like I’m just putting them in there to amuse myself and not to make the story or the character work better, that sticks out like a sore thumb and will take the reader out of the story. It has to feel natural.

[Donald A. Coffin]

Our copy if Edited Out arrived Saturday and my wife has read it (and enjoyed it) and now it's my turn...