by Stephanie Morrill
Today’s dose of Tuesday inspiration is longer than normal, but I just couldn’t resist. It comes from Million Dollar Outlines by David Farland, a book that talks a lot about why people read and what makes a book powerful. He says:
“When we read, we buy into a shared dream, a shared fiction, and by doing so we put ourselves in emotional jeopardy. If the emotional jeopardy is too small, we get bored. If the emotional jeopardy is too great, we’ll close the book. If the author abuses our trust … we will no longer trust the author and we’ll shun his fiction.”
When he talks about “abusing trust” he means when authors do things like write an ending that’s too ambiguous or if the story doesn’t end in a way that rewards us.
As a reader, I’ve experienced the truth of this. I’ve read books that bore me because I just don’t care enough. I’ve closed books because the content is completely different than was advertised. And I’ve sworn off authors because an ending irritated—or even angered—rather than satisfied.