BUILDING A BELIEVABLE
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DIFFERENT WAYS TO DEVELOP THE SAME STORY( CONT’ D)
The fat old man sat behind the reception desk. He leered at me as he ran his tongue around the outer edge of his lower lip, rubbing his fat manicured hands together.“ We ' re going to be very good friends, my dear,” he said, his voice charged with passion. A bit of saliva dribbled from the corner of his
PRESS“ CONTROL” THEN CLICK“ BUY” TO PURCHASE ANY BOOK mouth. I approached the desk, wearing the red merry widow and the red tutu. In my hand, I carried a ballet bag dripping with blood.
As effective as dreams are, there is a caveat. Sequences should be used sparingly unless they are an ongoing element in the character’ s life. In this case she can have several nightmares, because no matter how hard she tries to conquer them, the nightmares continue to haunt her as part of the form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder she battles. In some ways they dictate events in her life. By revealing her inner fears and desires to the reader via nightmares, it’ s like allowing them to peek into her soul.
THE OPTION OF USING DELAY TACTICS TO KEEP THE READER WANTING MORE
Delay tactics are great for heightening tension. There are proven techniques in both cases although it’ s a little trickier for a story told solely in first person than one with multiple POVs. Multiple POVs allow the author to end a chapter with a cliffhanger, then switch to another character in the next. The other character fills in some of the blanks that keep the tension alive. Even when you only have one POV, ending a chapter on a cliffhanger still works to delay the solution. The trick is to constantly pose questions: Will it? Won’ t it? One option for holding the tension is not starting the next chapter with the solution. If you choose this technique, be very careful not to upset the reader when they don’ t get the answer. Consider using your character’ s recollection of something that happened in the past, or might happen as a result of his or her decision. That memory or thought then shows why a decision or action is so difficult. Perhaps it foreshadows a significant event or will result in disaster. In doing so, you’ ve kept the reader turning the pages, given a little more depth to why the solution or dilemma is so significant, but haven’ t handed resolution to them on a silver platter.
OPT TO USE IMAGINATION
If you are writing in first person, using the character’ s imagination actually acts like another character, and that passage can be written in third person. Allow the pro-tagonist’ s imagination to tell part of the story or introduce something that they can’ t see. An effective technique is to first use a narration, like: Clouds ruptured in the sky like burst balloons. Sheets of torrential rain pounded Martin Truesdale’ s windshield. He fought for control of the wheel.
WINTER 2017
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