The Reader's Journey

I grew up hearing my father say the purpose of writing is to educate, entertain and inform. Never to impress. Remember that. I've forgotten at times and made costly mistakes. I believe that a writer must must must have a fair sense of justice. In fact: more than a fair sense. As a person the writer must be even able to consult with their heart, admit when they're wrong, and apologise for it. Back to writing: if they want they can choose not to exercise their sense for justice. But it must be a choice. It mustn't be that they lack it.

Writing gives you an opportunity to deal with a particular topic or a plot that comes to mind. So you might choose to address "Caribbean folk complaining despite the comfort they enjoy compared to other regions" or "what if we had a prime minister who's dealing with crime the way we'd like to see, zero tolerance: hit squads, assassinations".

Naturally, regardless of the approach, we insert characters, and we should bear in mind what state we want to leave the reader with when they reach THE END. Off the top of my head there're four favourable states: happy, sad, relieved and cheated. (Feel free to substitute words, for example "relieved" equals "satisfied".) As the writer you can choose to leave the reader with any combination of states.

But you don't ever want to aim at leaving the reader disappointed with the story. (In this discussion don't confuse disappointed with the story and cheated by how things turned out in the story. Disappointed addresses "I can't believe I wasted time reading this crap" whereas cheated is "oh my goodness, why did it work out this way for Johnny, I feel to cry now.")

Remember a reader has agreed to go on a journey with you (you're driving) and they want everything at the end except to be disappointed with the story.

Imagine for a second driving along a highway. The scenery is gorgeous, diverse. Think about what you like and it's there. The road is smooth. Good company. Your favourite drinks in a cooler. Wind streaming through your hair or if you prefer there's air-conditioner. Then, nearing what your instinct tells you is the end of the journey, you come upon a great wall that stretches across the road and shoulder. This same hollow feeling in your chest that's pressing down into your stomach is disappointment. This is exactly what you feel when you finish a bad story.

In the analogy above, the road is the quality of the writing, the author's delivery; the journey, the things along the way is the scenarios the reader encounters, the destination is the climax, the state(s) you're trying to leave the reader with.

There are bumpy, curvy rides that makes you feel sick, but hey! there's a beach at the end. Hard to read, but good ending. But if the road is simply horrible you'd rather not go. One has to be severely open-minded to finish these stories.

Then there're smooth, beautiful drives that lead to beautiful places.

The good news is that a road can be fixed. If you don't like the characters in the car, throw them out. If you need more get a bus. Want to get the reader there faster? Use a plane.

But I'm not so sure about bad destinations. I mean, imagine if the road was heading to a dump. The end is always a dump. Be it good or bad, the writer knows that the ending isn't right. For example I've grown suspicious of killing a character(s) at the end of a short story: it's been done many times, it's the easy way out (on another note can you imagine a real place piled high with the bodies of dead fictitious characters?). But as a writer I can argue or imagine that maybe two years from now the place wouldn't be a dump. It would be covered with soil and a theme park built there. Then adjust your story. Trust yourself. If it doesn't feel right, it isn't right. Use the scene with the dump but give the story a different ending.