Leaving Holes

roane72:

astudyinrose:

write-like-a-freak:

rederthere:

write-like-a-freak:

Your story is 50% reader. It’s that mixture of reader and writer that makes the magic.

Which means your story needs to have holes for the reader to fill in. You need that negative space for the puzzle pieces to fit.

I’m not talking about plot holes, I’m talking about giving one sentence the power of two. A book that means what it says is a mediocre book. A book that means more than what it says is a great book.

Don’t over-develop your characters, having them analyze every feeling, or spelling out what every character in a scene is thinking. Don’t follow up a powerful line with an explanation with what makes that line powerful.

Let your words imply as much as they state.

it can be so so hard sometimes, cuz i gotta remember i can trust my readers

And it can be hard to know WHICH holes to leave. You don’t want to leave any ‘this doesn’t make sense’ holes, but you do want to leave ‘insert your interpretation here’ holes.

this is the most important think I have ever learned about writing

THIS IS SO HUGE.

Learning how to trust not just yourself as a writer, but your readers too. It’s enormous, and it’s a balance I fight with all the time. I am a chronic over-explainer. (Side note: you know what’s another form of over-explaining? Constant use of italics so that your reader knows exactly how you want the sentence read.)

But yes. Let the reader fill some things in. It’s what gets them hooked.