Capturing and Keeping Your Audience - Introduction

This is the most important part of writing; especially for those who want to be noticed or published. Best Sellers are best sellers for a reason. The author was able to captivate the audience despite their own personal weaknesses and keep them hooked for hours. I know a lot of people reading this are struggling to grab their readers, and for that reason I've started this short writing series for you! The series will talk about capturing and keeping your audience hooked. As much as this advice shall help, you must execute it the right way for it to work...but even then, people are picky today about what they read.

Before doing any of this, look at the picture above. It's quote by Stephen King, "If you want to be a writer you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." This is essential. Read EVERYTHING. Read the literature, the best sellers, the junk stories, the poems, everything! By reading all this you are starting to establish how you shall write and what you shall write about. You explore the "do's" and "do not's". If you find it difficult to read a book join a book club, taking up Children's Literature if your University or College has it, take a Prose class, a English class! I guarantee that each forces you to read.

Here's a personal list of books I have read. It doesn't matter whether I'm recommend them or not, you need to read anything you can get your hands on:

a. Seraphina

b. The Inheritance Cycle

c. The City of Bones Series

d.The Divergent Series

e. Hamlet

f. Macbeth

g. Twelfth Night

h. City of Ember

i. The Throne of Glass Series

j. The Nancy Drew Series (there are A LOT of these)

k. The Wondrous Strange Series

And, if you want to read a series that highlights the bad in most fiction read all of the Twilight Saga...I dare you to try and finish them!

Above all else, you must also write a lot! Write about anything, your day, your week...a short story that pops into your mind, anything! Take some writing classes, form and harness your skill! But if you don't have time to read...then you shouldn't have time to write. Reading is prioritized above writing.

Some pre-advice...don't go around asking everyone to read your story. Truth be told eventually it gets annoying and instead of capturing you're readers...they'll be turned off. When people constantly ask me to read their stories, I don't care too much about anything...because now I don't want to read it.

Just a Warning.

Capturing Your Audience

It's essential for your story to grab readers and stand out from others like a sore thumb. Below are three main and key features to help your story stand out:

Fundamentals to Capturing Your Audience
1. The Title
2. The Synopsis
3. The First Line

The Title

The title summarizes your entire story into one to a few words. It gives the reader a short glimpse into what you're story is about, so making it as unique as possible is important. If you're writing a HTTYD fan fiction, do not use the word Alpha ANYWHERE! It's very cliché. I am saying this because the second thing you need in your title...is uniqueness. If you write something everyone else has in their title...people will overlook your story and move on. If you have no time to find an appropriate title, then you're showing the audience that you won't have the time or dedication to make the story amazing...

The Synopsis

"Once upon a time Toothless met Hiccup...here's the story before the story."

......

That's the reaction you're going to get from your readers. While writing what you want to write is important, you also need to figure out which one of your ideas (admit it, most of us have more than one) is going to grab the most people...but don't write anything that someone else thought of (a friend, or a suggested idea given to you by another person)...otherwise you won't put your heart and soul into it. Once you find one, brainstorm your basic plot line, themes, symbols, characters, etc. AND then you can work on a short paragraph.

First Line

"My name is Miya. I am a viking...and I love on the island of Berk."

......

Two words. Dull. Boring.

I don't think everyone is like me, but when I read that I cringe...then I pretend I'm batman and close the tab. News: You just lost me. But I'm not alone, a lot of people are like that...hence the lack of readers. Hence why people aren't reviewing. When someone see's that line they run...when someone see's sort of sentence anywhere where your character is summarizing who they are and where they live...or anything else, they will probably run! So leave the summarizing with the synopsis and don't bring it into the actual "meat" of your story.

Keeping Your Audience Hooked

But it isn't enough to just captivate your audience, you need to keep them captivated until your story is over. You don't necessarily need them to be begging you for more, but you need them to continue sacrificing their time to read new chapters as you release them. Here we talk about some of the structures of writing. The key elements of this are below:

Fundamentals to Keeping Your Audience

1. The Characters

2. The Plot
3. The Writing Style


Characters

Stop. Writing. Mary Sue's (<- the appropriate button I need for the accented e is not working. In terms, Mary Sue is a cliche character). And don't be fooled, Mary Sue exists everywhere. The rebellious teenager. The clean freak. The dumb blonde (i'm blonde...so if i don't take that in offense, none of you really should -.-). The jock. The geek. All stereotypes...stop using them! They are to be avoided. No if's. No and's. No but's. If you don't put the time into unique characters, you'll put the same minimal effort into the rest of your story. You need characters people will remember and can connect with.

Plotline

Realistic. R.E.A.L.I.S.T.I.C. It means you don't write about flying bunnies unless you can realistic write them into your story...and even then you need magic, and a good reason those bunnies exist. Everything in your story connects someone to the main arc...otherwise known as the main plot line. Stories consist of several plot lines, one main and several subplots. The main has three specifics: A questor, a quest and a desire. The questor is your main character, the quest is the specific task your character wants to achieve, and the desire is the reasoning behind your characters quest. I studied this specifically in Academic Skills in University...all three are necessary. They can be anything. Your questor is Toothless. The quest is to find Hiccup. The motivation/desire is keeping Hiccup safe. From there you can create your setting and brainstorm/plan, then write.

The Writing Style

I mentioned in Fan Fictions Improper Characterization and Avoiding it that I refuse to read fan fiction on the grounds that the characterization is horrible. But a close second in a long list of reasons why I don't read fan fiction is definitely Writing Style. I can only read a horrible writing style if the plot line is captivating (oh look! these two go hand in hand!) enough...otherwise I don't bother. Other people aren't as picky, but writing style is very important! People will notice it if it sucks. But you can only develop your writing style if you read (see introduction at the top on reading). Pacing is a part of writing style, you can't write your character opening a door, getting attacked by a dragon, running away, getting treated, spending every hour ALL night awake...and continue to talk about how she felt the next morning in ONE chapter...let alone four paragraphs! You haven't given your readers enough time to digest what's happening or get a faint glimpse of their surroundings...you don't have to foreshadow or write in themes...and the list goes on and on.

Each category is important, and working on your weaknesses is the hard work in writing. I will be going over each in as much details as possible over the next week or two. We will look into the importance of each element starting with the title in the next blog post.

Skypeoplephoenix732 on the SoD forums has some good advice, so she will be adding some stuff over the next several posts! And guys, please don't ask me to post your advice too! :) I asked Sky personally because I need more than one perspective. And I only needed one other.

Since this is the end all I have to say is...

(and in case you haven't noticed I love Big Bang Theory XP)

...see you next time!