As writers, we tend to vacillate between being both too trusting and mistrustful of our readers. For those times when we are too trusting, we expect the reader to immediately understand what we’re trying to say, without providing the required background information for the reader to do so.
However, when we don’t trust our readers, we give them an overabundance of clues to hammer our meaning home, while forgetting that they are not children (unless, of course, you’re writing children’s stories). Today, we’ll discuss the latter problem.
It’s easy to mistrust your reader. You don’t know who they are, you don’t know what kind of education they have, you don’t know what they’ve read . . . the list goes on. So, you feel like you need to grab your reader by the shoulders and shake them, saying “Hey! Do you see what I’m doing here? Pay attention!” This can manifest in a couple of ways: first, describing every little detail in your scene.
“Johnny picked up his pack by the drawstring and walked towards the barn. He entered through the wide-open doors and took an immediate right, following the
wall until he reached the second row of stalls. Walking down to the third stall, he hung his pack up on a hook by the stall door and reached in, feeling around inside for a carrot. Grabbing one by the top, he pulled it out and offered it to the horse in the stall . . .”
Consider the following: “Johnny dashed to the barn. He heard Lightning nicker from his stall at the back. The stallion pranced on its lead until the boy produced a carrot from his pack, their morning ritual.” Although it uses less than half the words, this example accomplishes the same task while telling much more about the boy, the horse, and their relationship.
Anyway—you get the point. Your reader doesn’t need step-by-step instructions. You want to paint a picture for your reader that he can understand, but you don’t want to inundate him with details that are at best overwhelming, and at worst, distracting from the details that are important. This is relatively easy to fix—go sentence by sentence and ask yourself, “Is this detail really important? Does this move the plot forward or set the scene?” If not, get rid of it.
The second way that writers like to clue in their readers is to add emphasis. This covers everything from ALL CAPS, italics, and exclamation marks!!?!, to words like “very,” “actually,” and “really.” Now, naturally, there are situations in which all caps and italics may be necessary—for example, you may use all caps if an AI or a computer is speaking. Italics are used for words in another language, or inner monologue. Likewise, there are times where “very,” “actually,” and “really” are appropriate. What I’d really like to talk about is the usage of any of these for emphasis, however.
We want to tell our reader, “Hey! This is important, and you know it’s important
because I’ve italicized and bolded it!” or “Hey! You know my reader is shocked and incredulous because of how many exclamation and question marks I’ve added at the end of my sentence!” or “You know my main character is over the moon because I’ve said he’s really happy!”
Be cautious of doing this! You don’t want to numb your reader to your embellishments, and you also run the risk of coming across as an excitable 17-year-old girl. First, eliminate offending embellishment entirely. See if what you’re trying to say gets across without the extra bells and whistles. If it doesn’t, rethink your wording. Let your words convey what you’re trying to say; don’t depend on external means to carry your story.
While I, personally, would prefer to never see italics (except in the usage stated previously), you may belong to another school of thought. Even so, I would encourage you to really think about each instance of italicization and ask yourself if it’s truly necessary.
The problem with using any of these is that you run the risk of making your reader dumb, for lack of a better term. They will begin to rely on those clues to tell them whether or not something is important. You will also lose out on those times when you do want to add emphasis to a word that simply cannot be conveyed by the word itself.
Here’s the bottom line: you have to trust your reader! Let him figure out what you’re trying to say; don’t let the external emphasis becomes a crutch for him, or for you. Be confident in yourself as a writer to tell your story without all those extras! Count on your story, your words, to be compelling enough, and don’t depend on the embellishments to talk for you.
Use your inside voice.
