Category Archives: Reader’s emotion

Is Reading Contagious?

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Science indicates 75 percent of parents wish their children would read for fun more. Yet most parents stop reading aloud once the child learns to read on their own. A report from Scholastic suggests reading out loud to kids throughout their elementary school years inspires them to become bookworms, reading five to seven days per week for fun. More than 40 percent of frequent readers ages six to 11 were read to at home, compared to 13 percent who did not read for fun.

At any age, reading increases intelligence.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

—Dr. Seuss

Diving into a good book opens up a whole world of knowledge. An increase in vocabulary is an obvious result, but it also leads to higher scores on intelligence tests. When children read for fun, it also leads to higher intelligence later in life.

Reading boosts brainpower.

Not only does regular reading make us smarter, but it also increases actual brainpower. Reading regularly improves memory function. Think of it as exercises for the brain. Aging often goes hand-in-hand with a decline in memory and brain function, but regular reading helps slow the process, keeping minds sharper longer, according to research published in Neurology.

Readers are more empathetic.

Being immersed in a story world, caring about characters, helps us relate to others. And so, we’re more aware of another person’s emotions, according to research published in Science Magazine. Interestingly, fiction has a greater impact on empathy than nonfiction.

“Understanding others’ mental states is a crucial skill that enables the complex social relationships that characterize human societies,” David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano wrote of their findings.

Reading may help fight Alzheimer’s disease.

Those who engage their brains through reading are 2.5 times less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who spend their downtime on less stimulating activities like television. Research suggests exercising the brain helps reduce the risk of developing other brain diseases, as well.

Reading reduces stress.

A 2009 study by Sussex University showed reading may reduce stress by as much as 68 percent.

“It really doesn’t matter what book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author’s imagination,” cognitive neuropsychologist David Lewis​ told The Telegraph.

Reading helps us relax.

There’s a reason snuggling up with a good book sounds so appealing. Because it is! Reading washes away the stressors of the day as we melt into the pages of a good book.

Reading fiction for fun.

Readers of fiction have increased creativity, empathy, and emotional intelligence. Losing ourselves in a fictional character’s experiences make us more open-minded and allow us to spend time in someone else’s shoes. Thus, readers become better humans than non-readers.

Reading supports self-improvement.

Readers support lifelong learning. One of the best ways to do that is to pick up a book and learn something new. Waving at readers who prefer nonfiction!

In general, read is good for our wellbeing. 

Some of us read to escape reality or imagine worlds beyond our own. Some read to learn new skills—cooking, crafting, creativity—or about real people who intrigue or inspire us. Some read thought-provoking books, some dive into futuristic worlds beyond our imagination. Whatever the reason that brings us to the page, reading is one of the best forms of self-care.

Is reading contagious?

Absolutely! Rather than rattle off statistics, I’ll pose a question. How many books have you bought based on word of mouth? When we see another reader all excited about a new book, we want to feel that way, too. So, what do we do? We check out the book.

When children see their parents reading for fun, it plants the seed for them to become lifelong readers, as well. In adults, if one partner pleasure reads several times per week, it lights a spark in their significant other. My husband never read for pleasure till he married me. When he first took the plunge, he devoured more books per week than I did. Over the years as he built and ran his small engine business, he had less time to read. But he dives between the folds whenever possible. Why? Because he sees how much I enjoy reading, and it’s contagious.

TKZers, why do you read? Does your partner read? Do your kids read? What’s the best thing about reading for you?

She may be paranoid, but is she right?

A string of gruesome murders rocks the small town of Alexandria, New Hampshire, with all the victims staged to resemble dead angels, and strange red and pink balloons appearing out of nowhere.

All the clues point to the Romeo Killer’s return. Except one: he died eight years ago.

Paranoid and on edge, Sage’s theory makes no sense. Dead serial killers don’t rise from the grave. Yet she swears he’s here, hungering for the only angel to slip through his grasp—Sage.

With only hours left to live, how can Sage convince her Sheriff husband before the sand in her hourglass runs out? Preorder on Amazon for $1.49

*Though HALOED is Book 5 of the Grafton County Series, it can easily be read as a standalone.

The Opening Chapter Reveals a Secret Vow

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A novel’s opening chapter makes a promise, a secret vow that says, “This is what you can expect from me.”

The chapters that follow better fulfill that promise, or the author will suffer the consequences with low-ratings, bad reviews, or their name on the Don’t Not Read list.

Yes, the promise is that important. It’s how we build and maintain an audience. It’s how we climb the proverbial ladder of success. It’s how we keep readers hungering for more. This solemn vow can NEVER be broken.

So far this month I’ve read three novels (all 5 stars). I average about one novel per week, along with nonfiction (craft books or true crime). None of my recent reads landed within my preferred genres of psychological thrillers, dark & gritty mysteries, and serial killer thrillers, but I feel it’s important for writers to venture outside their genres from time to time.

For my next read, I wavered between WIN by Harlen Coben or Book 2 of a serial killer thriller series from one of my auto-buy authors. I devoured Book 1 in a couple days, and I’d been dyin’ to read Book 2 for a while now, so I bought the $9.99 ebook. Immediately, the author transported me to a serial killer’s lair with the protagonist bound and helpless. I was enthralled. As I said, I’d been looking forward to this novel for a while and the opener didn’t disappoint.

Without sharing the title, I’ll show you how the writer sucked me into the scene.

Darkness.

It swirled around him deep and thick, eating the light and leaving nothing behind but an inky void. A fog choked his thoughts—the words tried to come together, tried to form a cohesive sentence, to find meaning, but the moment they seemed close, they were swallowed up and gone, replaced by a growing sense of dread, a feeling of heaviness—his body sinking into the murky depths of a long-forgotten body of water.

Moist scent.

Mildew.

Damp.

[Protagonist] wanted to open his eyes.

Had to open his eyes.

They fought him though, held tight.

His head ached, throbbed.

A pulsing pain behind his right ear—at his temple too.

“Try not to move, [Protagonist’s name]. Wouldn’t want you to get sick.”

The voice was distant, muffled, familiar.

[Protagonist] was lying down.

Cold steel beneath the tips of his fingers.

He remembered the shot then. A needle at the base of his neck, a quick stab, cold liquid rushing under his skin into the muscle, then—

Gripping, tense, love the story rhythm, the way he pauses at just the right moment. I could not flip the pages fast enough. Lovin’ every second of it!

And then…

In the next chapter, I find out it was all a dream. Infuriated, I almost whipped my Kindle across the room. One of my auto-buy authors wrote this thriller, and I expected him to fulfill the promise he made to me. Instead, he cheated. I was so disappointed, I refused to keep reading. He’d broken my trust. He let me down.

Sounds harsh, doesn’t it? But that’s exactly how I felt.

The emptiness he inflicted left me hungering for a visceral, gritty, serial killer thriller, one that would fulfill its promise.

I downloaded thriller number two.

Without revealing the title or author, here’s a small sampling of that opener.

            I woke up from a gentle shake. My sister’s face hovered a few inches above mine, her eyes glistening wet. A grinding sound came from her jaw as it moved back and forth.

I shivered.

[Sister] put her fingers against my lips. “SSSH. Nod if you understand,” she whispered.

I nodded.

My room was freezing from the cold wind blowing in through my open window.

“The monsters are coming for us. Be very quiet. We’re escaping,” she whispered.

I nodded again, biting my lip hard to not cry.

Was there a monster in my closet? Behind my closed bedroom door?

My heart thrashed against my ribs like a bird trying to escape its cage. Why were the monsters after us?

We learn the protagonist is a child and her older sister is rescuing her from an imminent threat. Other than a few writing tics, like SSSH instead of Shh…, the author did a terrific job of showing the action. Finally, I could sink into a gripping read. Or so I thought.

The next chapter (Ch. 1) consisted of pages and pages of backstory. No plot, only backstory. The premise still intrigued me, so I kept reading. Then I hit a flashback that dragged on for several pages. The worst part? It added nothing to the main storyline.

Still, because the prologue was so good, I read on. The prologue had raised many, many story questions, and I wanted answers. But in Chapter 2, I read more pages and pages of backstory and another flashback. The next chapter was equally disappointing, with more pages of backstory and a third (fourth?) flashback. I lost count.

Whiplashed from being thrown forward, then backward, I couldn’t take it anymore and closed the book. A good premise will only take you so far. At some point, you need to deliver on the promise you made to the reader.

The third novel I bought—all in same day, I might add—began with a slow burn opener. A girl is emptying a bucket of oil into the dumpster behind Burger King. It doesn’t sound like much on the surface, but the co-authors held my interest. Which, after being burned twice in a matter of hours, wasn’t an easy task.

Here’s the opening of DEAD END GIRL by L.T. Vargus & Tim McBain:

            Corduroy pants swished between Teresa’s thighs as she crossed the parking lot. She had a headache. That drive-thru headset gave her a headache every damn time. The band squeezed her skull like an old man trying to find a ripe cantaloupe in the produce department. Pressing and pressing until her temples throbbed. When the headaches were really bad, she got the aura. And it was gonna be a bad one tonight. She could already tell.

By the time she got home, she’d be nauseous from the skull throb along with the stink of fryer grease clinging to her clothes and hair and skin. Sometimes she swore she could feel it permeating her pores.

She placed a hand under the lid of the dumpster and lifted. The overhead lights in the parking lot glinted on the surface below. It looked like water, but it wasn’t. It was oil. Every night they emptied the fryers, dumping the used oil into this dumpster. It was a disgusting task. Worse than taking out the trash on a 90-degree summer day, when the flies got real thick, and the meat went rancid almost as soon as they put it in the bin.

It was dead out. No traffic. No noise at all but her fiddling with the dumpster and the bucket.

Her skin crawled a little whenever she was out here this late. In the dark. In the quiet. A feeling settled into the flesh on her back and shoulders, a cold feeling, a feeling like after watching one of those scary movies when she was a teenager. It might have been a thrill while she was watching, but later on that night she’d always get spooked. She’d tremble in bed, too terrified to walk down the hall to pee. The house never seemed so ominously still as it did on those nights. Anyhow, she couldn’t stand to watch horror movies anymore. Her weak stomach couldn’t handle the gore.

Bending over the metal cart she’d wheeled along with her, Teresa scooped one of the buckets of used fryer oil and balanced it on the edge of the dumpster. She tipped the bucket and watched as the gallons of brown grease oozed into the dumpster, disrupting the smoothness.

Settled at the bottom of the bucket, there were clumps and chunks. Burned bits of fries and chicken tender crumbs. They splatted and splashed into the pool of liquid that looked black in the night.

That’s when Teresa saw it. Something rising out of the oil, disturbing the otherwise unblemished surface.

Intriguing, right? Most importantly, the authors kept their promise. Elated, I could not flip pages fast enough, savoring favorite passages, the story rhythm and pace pitch-perfect. And now, I have a new favorite series. 🙂

Come morning, I felt bad about dissin’ my auto-buy author. Maybe he had a reason to break the don’t-open-with-a-dream rule. Could the last line of the first paragraph indicate a dream?

…his body sinking into the murky depths of a long-forgotten body of water.

In hindsight, maybe. Probably. But it’s too subtle. Nonetheless, I grabbed my Kindle and kept reading. Sure enough, he used the dream sequence to show the affect it had on the protagonist, who’s been suffering nightmares after a serial killer slipped through his grasp. The dream relates to the plot because that serial killer is back.

Do I agree with the dream opening? No, but I’ll keep reading because I know this author delivers each and every time and his writing speaks to me. But what if I wasn’t a fan? What if I’d chosen the book at random? He would’ve lost me. See what I’m sayin’? It’s a risky move.

We spend a lot of time perfecting our opening pages, polishing them till they shine, but our job doesn’t end there. We must follow through in subsequent chapters by setting up scenes, paying them off, setting up more, paying off more.

Other than that crucial promise, your solemn vow to the reader, a few other takeaways are…

  • Don’t start with a dream sequence unless the reader knows it’s a dream AND you’ve got a damn good reason to do it.
  • Go easy with backstory. Sprinkled it in over time.
  • Avoid flashbacks unless they’re absolutely necessary. Most times they’re not.
  • Don’t tell the reader what happened in the past. Trust us to figure it out on our own.
  • A great premise only works if you deliver on that promise.
  • If a slow burn opener works for your story, use it. Every novel doesn’t need a lightning-fast opener to draw and hold interest.

If you missed Jim’s post yesterday, read it (and the comment section!) for speed bumps that stop the reader.

How many chapters do you read before giving up on a novel?

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His name is Paradox and he poses his victims in RED cocktail dresses, RED roses replace the eyes, and their hands hold a riddle wrapped in RED satin. He will kill again if his cryptic clues aren’t solved within 24 hours.

Can Niko and Sage stop him before the clock runs out? Click here to look Inside SCATHED.

I’ll have what she’s having

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Emotion: How to Get it Working for You

by Steve Hooley

We all learned how to “set off” friends or siblings as a child. If we were the eldest sibling, we quickly learned how to manipulate younger siblings to flare their temper, get them in trouble, then watch in amusement as they became truly infuriated for the injustice of being blamed for something we engineered.

If we were the youngest, we instinctively learned how to get an older sibling to hit us. We then shouted to a parent with exaggerated pain, and watched with glee as the older sibling received their just rewards.

And then, we grew up and learned to behave as adults…until we joined the work force and saw the office curmudgeon blame everyone else for mistakes, or the ladder-climber take credit for everyone’s successes.

Now, as writers, we need to take those lessons from childhood and the office drama, dust them off, and add them to our arsenal or toolbox of skills for controlling emotions – in our characters and, even more importantly, in our readers.

Why? Because we are told that emotion is the glue that connects our readers to our books.

Techniques of the Selling Writer, Dwight Swain, p. 41: “How do you make readers care about what happens in your story? They must care, you know. Otherwise they won’t read!…A story recounts events. But those events can’t or won’t stand alone. They need to be explained, interpreted, evaluated, made meaningful. Above all, they must be translated into feeling.”

So, what are the techniques used to create emotion in our readers? That’s a big question and a big topic. As I reviewed multiple books, I found multiple opinions. Broadly, I found two basic approaches taught:

  1. Creating emotion in the characters with which the reader can identify.
  2. Creating “big emotional experiences (for the reader), engineered by circumstances.” Donald Maass, The Emotional Craft of Fiction, 132.

Maass divides #1 (above) into two subcategories: showing and telling. Telling, where the writer goes “inside the mind and heart of a character to observe and feel story events just as that character does.” And showing, where the writer “puts the reader through a character’s experience, provoking emotions in the readers; don’t spoon-feed them emotions.” pp. 1,2.

So, actually, we have three basic approaches.

Maass goes on to explain category #2 (above) by writing, “Fiction writers are asking the wrong question. Showing and telling are fine as far as they go, but the emotional experience of readers has little to do with that. The most useful question is not how can I get across what characters are going through? The better question is how can I get readers to go on emotional journeys of their own?” pp. 2

In reality, hopefully, we can learn from all three approaches, find what works for us, and blend them into our own unique brew to get readers drunk on our book.

Under category #1 above, James Scott Bell discusses ways to create an emotional bond between our reader and our lead character using “four dynamics—identification, sympathy, likability, and inner conflict.” (Read more in Plot and Structure, James Scott Bell, pp. 64 – 68.)

  • Identification: “…the more the reader can identify with the lead, the greater the intensity of the plot experience…”
  • Sympathy: “In contrast to mere empathy, sympathy intensifies the reader’s emotional investment in the Lead.”
  • Likability: “…someone who does likable things…not selfish…people we like to be around.”
  • Inner Conflict: “Bringing your Lead’s doubts to the surface in your plot pulls the reader deeper into the story.”

Under category #1 (telling), Jodie Renner discusses getting it right, in Chapter 4, “Bring Your Characters to Life by Showing Their Reactions,” Fire Up Your Fiction. “Readers want to escape into your story world…and vicariously experience what your protagonist is experiencing…If your character’s reactions feel natural and believable to the reader, they will quickly suspend disbelief and become emotionally invested.”

Jodie quotes Jack Bickham and reviews the “stages of response.” (pp. 18 – 22, Fire Up Your Fiction) First show the stimulus, then show the reactions in their natural order:

  • Visceral response
  • Unconscious knee-jerk physical action
  • Thought process
  • Conscious action

It’s not necessary to show all the reactions, but get them in the right order.

 

Okay, there’s the outline of three approaches. Now it’s your turn. I did this mini-study because there is so much I need to learn. I hope you will share what you have learned and fill in the specifics.

  1. What other approaches should we add to the outline?
  2. What works for you?
  3. What techniques have you discovered to turn up the volume and intensity of the emotional response of your readers?

 We all want to use our books to control the hearts and minds of our readers, to stir their emotions, and to keep them reading into the wee hours of the morning?

 Please share your knowledge!