Your potential readers have countless distractions and they
all compete with your memoir.
Just think of it: the Internet, iPhones, movies, athletics,
TV, hobbies, texting, exercising, magazines, Twitter, Facebook, friends, chores,
other people’s books—and more.
Twenty-some years ago, I read one brief sentence I’ve always
remembered:
(Peter Jacobi)
You cannot force anyone to read your stories, no matter how
important they are.
You know what it’s like to sit down with a book or magazine
anticipating—even craving—a good read, only to be bored.
And you know very well that story does not have a divine
right to be read. You feel no hesitation in dropping it and looking for
something better to read.
You don’t want readers to do that with your stories. What can
you do?
Throughout your manuscript, make ‘em laugh, cry,
and wait.
Keep them reading by “placing gold coins along the path.”
Don Fry coined that phrase. It goes something like this:
Picture yourself making your way down a narrow path in a
thick forest. (I’m picturing one with tangled, soggy underbrush in western
Washington’s rain forest.) You’ve been hiking a mile when you spot a gold coin
on the ground. You snatch it up and put it in your pocket. You trek a mile
deeper into the woods, find another gold coin, and slip it into your pocket.
Think about it: Would you keep traipsing through the forest, hoping for another
gold coin? Sure! Most of us would hike another mile for another gold coin.
(from
Writing Tools, Roy Peter Clark)
“Think of a gold coin as any bit that rewards the reader,”
says Roy Peter Clark, a master teacher of writing and one of my favorite
mentors for decades.
“With no gold coins for motivation, the reader may drift out
of the forest.”
Don’t let them drift out of your forest!
Don’t let their interest fade! Scatter gold coins especially in the middle of your stories!
Even the old Bard himself, Shakespeare, gave out gold coins
in the middle of his plays.
Clark offers these ideas for developing “dramatic and comic
high points,” gold coins to drop within your stories:
- a small scene (the setting)
- a relevant anecdote
- a startling fact
- a significant quotation
I can think of other ideas:
- a quirky anecdote
- a little-known fact
- an intriguing historical
fact
- foreshadowing an important
twist or turning point or crossroads in your story
- raising a question
- Can you think of others?
Leave your ideas in the comments section below.
- Study other people’s
writing and movies for strategic placement of gold coins.
- If you’re doing research for
your stories, recognize gold coins when you stumble upon them and be sure
to use them in your stories.
- Examine one of your rough
drafts and notice gold coins—“any story element that shines”—and mark them
with a star. Note their placement. Are they in the best place?
- Study the middle of your
story. Does it include significant gold coins—rewards for your readers? If
not, write in some nuggets or move them from other parts of your
manuscript.
