Triggering a response from your writing

[John Dean]

Continuing my recurring theme of evoking reactions in your reader, I think that good writing is about triggers - words, phrases, images, places, sensations that reach deep into the reader’s mind.

That reaction will be based on something the reader has actually experienced, or maybe something that the reader dreads ever having to experience. It is why horror and ghost stories work so well. And the same can be said for crime fiction.

Good writing reaches deep inside the reader. Yes, you are messing about with their head, yes, you may be forcing them to confront difficult truths, but isn’t that sometimes what writing is about?

If every story, every book, was about sugary-sweet people in lovely situations, then writing could never really move the reader as it should. You don’t read the likes of crime fiction and horror unless you are prepared to be challenged.

So, yes, writing can, on occasion, make the reader feel uneasy, uncomfortable, scared even, but, let’s be honest, isn’t that sometimes the way we feel in our daily lives anyway? It’s simply art reflecting reality.

It’s something I take into my writing. In the recently-published A Breach of Trust, for example, DCI John Blizzard not only confronts dangerous criminals but also his inner reservations about becoming a father. Any parent will identify with his anxieties and that, in turn, triggers an emotional response to the story.

You can find out more about the book and buy it on ebook at https://www.amazon.co.uk/BREACH-TRUST-Blizzard-murder-mystery-ebook...