Being a writer is more than just sitting at a desk with a pen and a notebook or staring at a computer screen and hoping the words write themselves. For a story to be truly captivating, readers must often use their suspension of disbelief. If you want a definition, suspension of disbelief is the avoidance—often described as willing—of critical thinking and logic in understanding something that is unreal or impossible in reality in order to believe it for the sake of enjoying its narrative.
Many works of fiction include elements that may not be entirely believable in real life, like magic or various fictional beings, or even something somewhat believable, like teenager being a ‘star’ witness to a crime and being an integral part of the investigation.
Writers play a big role in the suspension of disbelief. Their story must be crafted in such a way that it’s not too far out of the realm of believability, yet entertaining enough to take the reader out of their reality and into the story.
One way to do this is with thorough research. Yes, research. Believe it or not, your favorite writer likely didn’t always know all about the sizes of entrance and exit wounds from various firearms, the concept of every day carry (which I covered in a previous blog), or how a police detective actually goes about solving a crime. Hint: it’s not how it’s done on your favorite police procedural TV show.
Your favorite writer came up with the framework for the story: the main plot, subplots, scenes, characters, and dialogue – and a lot more – to create the book you read on your e-reader or the physical copy you hold in your hand. Then, they had to fill in the details, including details they may not know.
One detail I’ve had to research recently for a work in progress is car bombs. The thoroughness of the search may have shot my name to the top of some government lists, but now I feel I know enough that the small scene believable. I put in several hours of research to make one, 62-word, 4-sentence paragraph believable to not just my entire audience but to the select few who may know how car bombs are made, where the ‘best’ place to plant them is, how they detonate, and the aftermath they leave behind.
Would a person close to the blast have been able to escape? If so, would that person come away with only minor injuries – like cuts and scrapes from shrapnel – and nothing else? What could be the extent of injuries? Collapsed lungs? Smoke inhalation? How long would that person survive without immediate care? These are all questions that needed to be answered to make those 62 words less Hollywood and more reality. You won’t need to pull yourself out of the story to go look up the information to see if I’m right or wrong.
My readers don’t necessarily need to know the exact mechanics of how the bomb was made, planted, and detonated in technical terms. Of course I know those facts, but they add nothing to the story. Even when the character that knows about the bomb is talking about the event, they won’t go through exactly how it’s made. If they did, you’d be bored within a few sentences and put the book down, possibly to never finish it.
What’s a story you had trouble finishing because small details weren’t addressed? Or stories where the author offered too much information that reading through it all made you wish you hadn’t picked up the book? Let’s talk more on Facebook!
You’ve likely heard of beta reading or beta testing before, where you get a nearly final product to test out or read and give feedback to make the version released to the public the best it can be. But does anything come before beta? Yes! Alpha testers or readers are the ones who experience the rawest form of the product. In writing, that means the very first draft. If you’ve ever presented a piece to a writing group or workshop, you’ve had alpha readers.
My alpha reader is a good friend I’ve known for many years. I’ll drop sections or whole chapters for them to read and they give me honest feedback on how to make it better. The sections may not be completely raw, but they are the first to see a work besides myself. Alpha readers look at your work in much the same way beta readers do, searching for plot holes, loose ends, and anything else that will distract a reader from the story. What they don’t do is point out editorial mistakes like spelling, grammar, sentence structure, or punctuation – unless there are glaring mistakes that distract from the story.
Does your alpha reader have to be a fellow writer or an editor themselves? No, but since they’re reading your first draft and looking to help you make the story better, it can help if they know a little about the process. This friend of mine isn’t a writer, but asks intelligent questions and makes thoughtful comments that makes my writing better. You could consider them ‘casual readers’ whose feedback helps build the story into the product that beta readers, and ultimately the reader who buys the book, will experience.
Do you need alpha readers? Yes! And us writers have used them whether or not we know it, and you have, too. Remember back to your school days of writing book reports or other long works and you gave the paper to your mom or another family member to read the first draft – that person was your alpha reader. With their suggestions, the work got better and when you returned it to them after the suggested revisions, or presented it to someone else, that person was your beta reader, and the teacher you turned it in to the final audience.
The value an alpha reader brings is that they don’t live with your story daily the way you do. They’re a set of ‘fresh eyes’ that can point out the flaws you’ll never see, even if you self-edit a dozen times and give the story a rest between reads. You know it too well, know what you want to see, and see it.
If you’re a writer looking for an alpha reader for the first time, you may not even know what to ask of them. If you’ve been enlisted by a writer as their alpha reader, here are some questions to ask or answer to help make the work better:
Did you have any questions once you’d read it?
What’s working here?
What’s not working for you?
What do you think of the alpha reading process? Let’s talk more on Facebook!
Today would have been a great day to announce the release date of my upcoming novel, but alas, it’s stuck in proofreading. It’s the last step before publication, and I’m itching to get it done. But there are other ways to celebrate.
– Tell me about your favorite book
– Tell me about your favorite author
– Give that person’s latest work and honest (even if it’s negative) review
– Buy a new book
– Check out some books from the library. Maybe look for some dusty ones that haven’t been checked out in a while, you may find a new favorite!
– Support a local author. Many bookstores and libraries have sections featuring local authors!
How will I celebrate? Likely by writing or editing one of my current works in progress.
Hi. I’ve never written a blog post before. It’s something I usually have my secretary do because she’s more tech savvy than me. The biggest tech I deal with is my cameras for surveillance. But you all want to know about me, right? That she can’t really write about.
So, here we go. My name is Paul Boulder and I’m a private investigator in the Glass area. I’ve done a lot of work over the years to help families stay together, but also it sometimes ends in a split. I did want to be an officer with GPD, and was even in the academy with Detective Ellison.
But, as it does, shit happens. Both of my parents got sick, and as an only child and the only family in the area, I had to step away and step up to take care of them. They both died, within hours of each other. I broke. I couldn’t function. At all. I thought going back to the academy would be a great distraction from the pain and loss, but it wasn’t. I got through academy and lasted about six months before the grief swept me away.
I ended up doing odd jobs, office work – anything to make money and keep living. It was all I could do to keep my head above water and focus on life and not contemplating my own…well. I’ve put that in the past. There’s nothing to do about it anymore, and I’m a strong person who doesn’t take shit.
That led eventually to becoming a P.I. I knew I could never be a cop. I’m too old to start at the bottom like that, and I don’t want to be some administrative paper pusher when what I love is law and law enforcement. So I opened my firm and started taking jobs. Ell will tell you that I’m ‘one of the good ones.’ For the most part I stay out of active police investigations, unless somehow they cross paths with my own investigations.
The case of the Glass Creek Murders is a bit unique though. There’s so much going on. I can’t give you specifics because, well, because. At the moment, any client I have may be connected to this case. Whether it’s marital problems or helping to correct a good kid gone bad, I feel like there’s going to be a connection somewhere, somehow, at some point.
I don’t know what else to tell you. That’s really just it unless you want like baby pictures and stories or something. No? Okay. Well. Thanks for listening.
I hope you all are enjoying this month about what goes into writing, and some of my writing in particular. One thing that’s always a part of a fiction (or any) writer’s routine is research. As I said last week, I’ve researched the size of entrance and exit wounds for various bullets, the various stages of decomposition of a human body (gross, by the way), and looked into what exactly a detective does to solve a case. All of this has informed my writing to make it the best, most believable it can be. Part of that is due to my dad, a former police officer, who sits and scoffs at TVs, movies, and books that add a little sparkle and flair when it comes to keeping an audience’s attention and keeping them entertained.
My goal, of course, is to entertain you, but also not distract you from that entertainment by being patently false in how factual, real events are carried out in every day life. Without knowing who everyone in my audience is, there will likely be former police officers or detectives, former military, and average fans of the genre who know a thing or two about a thing or two when it comes to how other authors have handled these factual aspects of fiction.
Two of my most recent works in progress have revolved around a U.S. Air Force veteran. So I made contact with one online. We chat about his experiences, I ask questions on specific facts or details I’d like to cover, and he answers if he can. The interesting part about this dynamic is that I can send a message whenever I have a question I need answered. I’m not boxed in to a single interview, or scheduling multiple and taking up his time as well as taking away my own from writing, editing, business, and family time.
I leave a question, he leaves an answer, and when we’re both available, we chat or I take the opportunity to conduct a real-time interview that’s not set up and stuffy as it would be if it were scheduled for a specific date and time. I get more honest, off-the-cuff answers and shades of his personality rather than stilted, scripted interviews.
These ‘real-time’ interviews have colored my writing in a way no other research or interviewing style has. The depth and detail of knowledge I’ve gained from the more informal nature of this communication has done wonders for my writing. I hope you’ll get to see it soon!
Has there ever been a time when you’ve used online tools in this way? How did it change the dynamic? Did you respond differently? Did the person you were interacting with respond differently? Let’s talk on Facebook!
