surprise your audience

31st March 2017 | for Creatives | reading, writing, reaching your audience, David Gerrold  |       

surprise your audience

"Readers look for the surprises in your story the same way a child looks for the prize inside a box of Cracker Jacks.  If you don't surprise your audience, they walk away from your story wondering why they bothered."

— David Gerrold

Similar for Creatives

evoke the sense of wonder in your audience

"Your goal, as a storyteller, is to evoke the sense of wonder in your audience.  You start by evoking the sense of wonder in yourself.  Where one person is awestruck, others are also likely to be amazed."

to believe in your world

"Go ahead, make something up!  Anything.  After all, this is fantasy, right?  Wrong.  The audience still wants to believe in your world—and believability comes from the recognition of an internally consistent system of logic.  If things are not consistent, they are (literally!) unbelievable."

It has to be a conversation

"Literature does not occur in a vacuum. It cannot be a monologue. It has to be a conversation, and new people, new readers, need to be brought into the conversation too."

Stories pushed beyond the limits

"I believe in sending characters down fearful paths.  Stories pushed beyond the limits of comfort stick in readers' imaginations."

The biggest seller of books is still word of mouth

"I'm inspired when I literally can't put a book down.  I'll leave the dishes in the sink.  I'll bore friends and family talking about people they don't know and situations they've never read.  In short, I'm pitching to everyone around me.  If a book connects with me to that extent, it will connect with others.  The biggest seller of books is still word of mouth, and the most successful books are those people can't stop talkinga about, agents included."

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