When Readers get "IT"

TxRad said:

The one thing that makes me highly suspicious of writing advice from the pros is the price tag on the book. Not to mention the fact that if they had a true secret, they wouldn't part with it for any amount of money. It would be truly priceless.

Writing is more or less common sense and what works for you. Even the fantasy parts.

Click to expand...

I've read books for publishing advice, but not for writing advice.

GoldenCojones said:

If your character looks out the window and sees a woman walking her dog and then looks out again and sees her returning home without the dog, that is an Easter egg, a rifle on the wall so to speak, and you should either do something with it or remove it. Just my opinion.

Click to expand...

Meh. Maybe it's a foreshadowing of loss. She won't be mentioned again and the loss it foreshadows has nothing to do with a dog, but it's still an oblique symbolic representation of a future plot point.

I did do something with her, in short. Just nothing I'd expect most readers to ever consciously notice, which is fine because most effective writing plays on the subconscious. Especially in erotica; if you're after the big reader orgasm, set the teases and symbols up early and often. Handled right, the reader is squirming before she ever gets to a sex scene, and she's barely aware of why.

I put stuff in my stories like this fairly often. They rate ok. I'm sort of amused by the idea of someone sweeping in and suggesting I cut my "unnecessary" words.

HandsInTheDark said:

I put stuff in my stories like this fairly often. They rate ok. I'm sort of amused by the idea of someone sweeping in and suggesting I cut my "unnecessary" words.

Click to expand...

Often, very often, some silly thing crawls out of my head into the text. I don't know why. A few pages later, I discover 'why', when that trivia becomes important. The storytelling module of my quasi-consciousness just works that way. Is that an 'IT' for readers to get? I dunno.

Hypoxia said:

The firearm on the wall could be symbolic of a player's military or police past, or hunting or marksmanship prowess, or aesthetic sense (if any), or collecting proclivities, or sexual orientation (if it's a blunderbuss). Or it might only be a random bit of an author's laziness.

Click to expand...

And sometimes it's there to occupy the reader's attention while you sneak the poisoned fruitcake under their nose.

Poisoned fruitcake? Isn't that redundant?

Hypoxia said:

Often, very often, some silly thing crawls out of my head into the text. I don't know why. A few pages later, I discover 'why', when that trivia becomes important. The storytelling module of my quasi-consciousness just works that way. Is that an 'IT' for readers to get? I dunno.

Click to expand...

I guess "IT" can be anything you want it to be. When I write I like knowing that readers understand the story. If they don't, I feel like I have failed. If they do understand then I have succeeded, at least in some small part.