Make Your Fiction Writing Come Alive!

We read fiction for many reasons. To be entertained, to find out who has done it, to travel to strange, new planets, to be scared, to laugh, to cry, to think, to feel, to be so absorbed that for a while, we forget where we are. So, how about writing fiction? How do you suck your readers into your stories? With an exciting plot? Maybe. Fascinating characters? Probably. Beautiful language? Perhaps.

The point of fiction is to cast a spell, a momentary illusion that you are living in the world of the story. Fiction engages the senses and helps us create vivid mental simulacra of the characters' experiences. Stage and screen engage some of our senses directly. We see and hear the interactions of the characters and the setting.

If you describe the story in a matter of fact, non-tactile language, the spell risks being weak. Your reader may not get much beyond interpreting the squiggles. They will understand what the character feels like, but won't feel what the character feels. They'll be reading, but not immersed in the world of the story.

Fiction plays with our senses: taste, smell, touch, hearing, sight, and the sense of motion. It also plays with our ability to abstract and make complex associations with each word chosen to evoke a certain quality of sound.

So when you write, use well-chosen words to engage sound, sight, taste, touch, smell, and movement. Then create unexpected connotations among your story elements, and set your readers' imaginations alight.

Lots of Love

Maegan Winters.