Day 37

We’re back to words of wisdom, in which the true writer has nothing to say, what counts is the way he says it.

Does this mean everything we write must be compelling? Certainly, that remark I once read on the front of a thriller novel I once bought simply because of it, holds true. The remark, “Grabs the reader by the scruff of the neck and drags them through to the last crowded page”.

And oddly enough it was true, I read the book in a single sitting.

It also lit the fire under me to write spy novels, too.

I’m guessing that the whole reason behind the simple few words is to make us writers sit up and think about how we’re going to engage the reader.

I read a lot, and it’s generally the first few pages that will draw me in or turn me off. I had written quite a few stories, and it took me a while to realise that boring introductory stuff can be spread sparingly through the pages, whilst all the edge-of-the-seat stuff is going on around it.

I call it writing the James Bond start, that from the first sentence you’ve been dropped into an erupting volcano, and you’ve got about fifteen seconds to work out how to get out of it. Of course, there is that circling helicopter gunship firing machine guns at you at the same time, shredding the parachute that just caught fire.

It’s why, going way back in cinema land in the previous century, the serials that ran before the main picture always had a cliffhanger ending.

The same should apply, in a sense, to the story, always leaving it in such a way that the reader has to read on.

I try.