Monday Mastery: Breathless and meandering
How your communication habits impact your reader’s experience.
Welcome to Monday Mastery, a series designed to shift your perspective, teach you new techniques, and help you become a more effective writer, one tip at a time.
One of the things I do in my professional life is line-edit book manuscripts for a mid-size publisher. I just wrapped up an edit of a sweet contemporary romance novel that knocked my socks off.
It wasn’t the most innovative plot I’ve read. The characters weren’t the most unique. In fact … not much happened in the book at all. So why was I blown away?
It was immersive.
The description was so well done, I felt like I was there in a small seaside town in Maine.
The interiority (character thoughts and internal motivations) was so well threaded, I understood the characters deeply.
I am not a descriptive author, myself. The novels I write lean on dialogue and action to move the plot forward, and I have to work very hard to slow the pace. My editor has used the word “breathless” to describe my early drafts. And of course, one of the techniques for slowing the pace of a book is to write more description and interiority.
I’ve written before about pace in writing, but I want to revisit it today, because I think there is a parallel to how we approach communication as individuals.
I tend to be action oriented (when in doubt, I default to action), and conversation is how I connect with people. That shows up in how I write novels.
I don’t personally know the author of the book I just edited, but I bet she’s thoughtful and deliberate, because that’s how she writes her books.
I can certainly stand to slow down and be more thoughtful in some of my day-to-day communications. And in earlier drafts of her book, this author needed to move the characters out of their heads and into action more often. (I know this because of the comments left by the developmental editor!)
It’s easy to fall into habits with our communication, especially with our writing. But it’s worthwhile to examine those habits and consider where we might need to make adjustments to get our message across.
Sometimes the reader needs us to slow down. Sometimes they need us to get a move on. But if we don’t stop and think about the experience we’re creating for them, and how it aligns with the experience they need, we’re going to miss the mark.
Have you ever read a book, an article, or even an email that left you breathless? Have you ever read something that felt like it took forever to get to the point? What did you learn from those pieces of writing?
It was only when I attempted writing fiction that I realized I do waaaaaay too much "telling" and not enough "showing"! For some writers, that immersive experience seems so effortless!