About Their Toes

Post 528:

            Sometimes it’s good to trick your audience. I don’t mean bilk them out of their life savings. No, a little more innocuous. I’m only intimating that giving a good dose of surprise or even lasting incredulity can help.

            Keeps folks on their toes.

            I’m reading A Man Called Ove. I’ll probably review it later, but right now I’ll just use it as an example.

            The entire introduction is written to make you feel one thing about the character. You can kind of tell that something’s going to make you change your feelings about the guy, but while you’re reading it, there’s no good reason to feel anything but blah about him. (By him, I refer to Ove, the titular character)

            No spoilers, but basically the whole idea is that you start to understand and get why he’s the way he is. I dare say, how could you have been so presumptuous? And… didn’t you see that coming?

            Sometimes good writing is supposed to awaken us out of the mire of our minds and make us reconfigure our wires. If the audience is thinking about the character or the plot in a different way, they aren’t idle. That’s good. You don’t want your audience at idle. The more times their expectations are subverted, the more they’ll be on their toes.

            On their toes is perfect. That means they’re paying attention. Attention when reading is in the top fifty of the most important things… about reading.

            Attention! Have a good day, keep them guessing, and see you after. Cheers.