THAT'S ALL GOOD ADVICE! What -- you thought I was going to say otherwise? What am I, stupid?
The 'listening' I'm talking about is a different kind, a kind that I keep encountering in my own writing and a lot of the critiques that I do for others, the kind that waters down the impact of your story, and it's a trap that's easy to spring because it lurks within the process of living the story as you write it.
Take the following passage, taken verbatim from what I'm about to make up:
Kurt felt himself inching closer to the edge of the building, until he could see the tips of the toes of his shoes pierce the invisible wall that separated his life from his death, this ledge from that empty space. He was listening to the sound of the traffic below, distant honking horns and the squealing of tires, as it caromed its way up between the glass and concrete walls of the urban gorge. He heard the babble of the officer that was trying to tell him something about coming back closer, that it would all be okay if he only got himself back inside. He felt the beat of his heart, seeming like it would burst through the front of his chest, noticed the searing heat in his cheeks, the rush of flush color that accompanied the terror and freedom he felt over the decision he had just made: he decided that he was going to do it.
Okay, that was pretty easy to get down on the page. I just observed this imaginary Kurt fella, and started recording the details I could see in the thick of his situation, as accurately as I could report them. What did he feel? He felt this. What did he see? He saw that. What did he hear?
And so on.
The problem with that prose is that while I took full advantage of my character, my writing faculties and my imagination, I forgot the other element involved in the act of writing: reading. My reader has a job here, too, and that's to enter the world of my words and let them come alive. But instead of enhancing that experience, what I wrote above is hindering it, because I didn't trust the power of point-of-view.
From the very first word, 'Kurt', my reader is there on the ledge. I don't need to tick off an inventory of relationships Kurt has to the scene, what he sees, feels, etc. All that does is push my reader back, makes them a distant observer. When you burn your hand, you don't think 'I'm feeling my hand getting burnt', you think 'AHHH!'. If I want my reader to stay inside Kurt's skin, I've got to edit away anything that's about my authorial relationship to the scene, bring it right into the immediate. See if you can catch the variety of 'relational words' I'll be excising. Let's try again:
Kurt inched closer to the building's edge, until his toes pierced the invisible wall separating life from death, ledge from empty space. Below, honking horns and squeals of traffic caromed up between the urban gorge's glass and concrete. The officer babbled something about coming closer. It would be okay inside. Kurt's heart burst in his chest. His cheeks flushed red. Terror. Freedom. He was going to do it.
Okay, that's 160 words cut down to 73. In the first, you're observing Kurt in great detail, just like I did when I wrote it. In the second, you ARE Kurt.
You may also notice this is a great technique to employ when you're trying to figure out how to cut your 160K YA contemporary down to 73K.
So stop 'listening', 'noticing', 'hearing', 'feeling' -- and all the rest of them. And watch how your prose comes alive.
Any tricks of your own that you use to bring your readers closer to the action?
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