You sit down and look at the blank screen, hoping and praying that this time the perfect combination of words are going to pour forth from your fingertips. You're there for hours, filling your belly with coffee (or tea) and your brain with caffeine. You shift your weight from one side of your buttocks to another, over and over again trying to resist the urge to get up and walk away. You smoke cigarette after cigarette, but every now and then, you get a burst of inspiration and forget about the one burning; and it gets totally wasted because it burns right down to the filter. You read your work, and think to yourself, this is good or this sucks or why do I even bother to call myself a writer.
Not all of the above will apply to you. But chances are, some of it does. And in those things you can identify with, you and I have made a connection. Not a strong one, but its a start.
The one thing that all of the above have in common, is that they are all minor details of what many a writer goes through. If this were a story about a writer who suddenly hits the jackpot, and writes a best selling novel, you would at least have a relationship with him before he leaves the realm of reality (reality for most of us, anyway). You would have identified with the details, even if you couldn't identify with his fortune.
Through such details, we can make any story sound plausible, no matter how fantastic it is. And we can make our audience relate to our characters on a very personal level. This will entice them to keep reading, not necessarily because they want to find out what happens, but because they want to spend time with your character.
To give you a better idea of how this works, I'll introduce a detective. Hes one of the best on the planet. So good in fact, that aliens from the planet Zorgot abduct him so that he can use his reputable powers to find out who killed their global leader. And adventure ensues.
Now very few people are going to identify with a detective. Still fewer will identify with an alien abduction (lets hope). While they might find the plot mildly interesting, theres no connectionthey have no real reason (other than curiosity) to continue reading.
But lets say, on the morning of the abduction, our detective is just finishing his cup of morning coffeethe one that is really more of a waker-upper than even his cold shower. And lets say hes worrying about the gas bill, because he has a letter in his hands from Skylark Energy that says they want some money in the next two days or they're going to shut him off. And lets also say that he looks down to notice that he had gotten toothpaste on his tie, and all of his other ties are at the drycleaners.
Now we've given our audience three different conundrums they can probably relate to (depending on who the audience is). In those three things, nearly everyone will be able to point at least one of them and say, yeahI know how that is. Thats the connection you should strive for.
If you feel your plot (or even your article) is too dry, then go back over it again and add detail. Even one or two can completely transform your work, making it juicier than you could have imagined.
Eric Engel is the author of several novels. His latest work, a personalized science fiction book, can be purchased at http://scfiadventure.com.
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