This post by Jean Oram originally appeared on her The Helpful Writer site on 3/11/14.
Ever wondered why your books maybe aren’t getting purchased? Finding an agent to rep them? Or just plain and simply catching on?
There are a ton of reasons why books don’t connect. Timing, luck, voice, content, etc. Some of these aren’t controllable. But one thing is.
Boring your reader to tears, death, or worse…having them put your book down in disinterest.
It happens. We can’t connect with every reader. And if we try, well, chances are we’ll end up with a book that connects with even fewer people. (Not everyone liked Harry Potter, believe it or not. They just stay in hiding.) But there ARE things we can do to increase our chances of connecting with our readers and one of the big things is not boring them.
I know, right?
How to Know if You are Boring Your Readers and What to Do About It
The easiest way to figure out if you are boring your readers is to see if you are boring yourself.
Seems too basic, doesn’t it?
Right now there could be some of you thinking, “But there isn’t a stitch of boringness in my whole story!” Could be true. Maybe you wrote The Hunger Games. If so, you’re excused. However, the other several billion of us did not. So, dig deep and fall out of love with yourself for a moment (shouldn’t be too hard–we are artists, after all where self-doubt and loathing is as common as cheap bar soap).
Here are a few inklings that things aren’t as tight and as exciting as you might wish them to be in your story and you might be boring your reader.
Click here to read the full post on The Helpful Writer.