I’ve always been someone who doesn’t like to get bogged down in the details. When I was younger I wasn’t very much of a reader. When I actually did read something, as soon as I saw a huge block of text my eyes always glossed over it. I didn’t want to get bogged down in all the details, I just wanted to get to the action. The meat of the story.
As a writer, I kind of feel the same way, but I have to work on that. I just want to write the juicy stuff. The fun stuff.
But I know readers, real readers (not the kind of reader I was growing up) want those details. They want to be submersed into the world they are reading about. So it’s a constant fight with myself in getting down all the action and making sure I slow it down a bit to allow for world building. It shouldn’t be boring but I need to add things that will interest readers so they learn more about the characters and the world they inhabit.
So that’s what I’m trying to do with my current projects. I have Fire Mage, my urban fantasy, and Monster Hunter, my supernatural monster hunter book. I’d like to just be kicking vampire ass and using cool elemental magic, but I know I need to slow some parts down so readers actually learn about who my character are. I need to do that so readers feel something for the character, develop a relationship with them. They need to laugh with them, cry with them, feel excited when they do and feel fear when the character is afraid.
That’s the job of the writer. So that’s what I’m trying to do.
See you tomorrow.