Saturday, 7 February 2015

Inspiring the reader

Writers are about inspiration; a chance comment, a sunset, an incident, a newspaper report, these and much more trigger a stream of thought. 

The trick is then to inspire the reader with the same idea and to be quick about it. Impressions are crucial when you are a writer. Your reader will make their mind up pretty quickly about your story within the first few words therefore a well chosen line of description of a place or a person, a startling scenario or a cracking line of dialogue will set the tone. Make it flat and dull and the reader probably will not read on.

Here’s how I started my crime novel Strange Little Girl: John Blizzard stared bleakly at the red paint that had been thrown over the gravestone. Kids, he thought. Whatever happened to respect for the dead?

Hopefully there is enough to intrigue the reader in just 25 words

John Dean

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