The truth is out there somewhere

[John Dean]

Writing is a highly technical business. Sense of place, characterisation, plot, grammar, pace, back story, spelling, these and many more considerations crowd in on an author’s mind with every word that they write.

And rightly so – the manuscript has to be the very best it can be. The writer seeking to be published needs to give themselves the best chance of success when submitting their work to publishers and agents and the published author owes it to the people prepared to spend money on their books.

However, that forensic focus on technique means that, sometimes, writers can become so obsessed that they forget the thing that lies at the heart of good writing – the truth.

I say this because I am editing my first draft of a new Jack Harris crime novel and keep reminding myself that, amid all the technical consideration, raw emotion pulses at the heart of the story, created by a sense of the truth that underlies all human dramas.

Why is the truth important, though? Well, it is through seeing characters in extremis, when they are fighting for what really matters to them, when they are experiencing emotions that truly test them, when they are getting back up after being knocked down, that we see them at their truest.

That means that the writer must embrace the emotions inherent in their story because, if they do, they will trigger a deeply personal reaction in their readers as well, a reaction based on something that the reader has experienced, or maybe dreads ever having to experience.

And isn’t that what writing is about? Isn’t it about plunging your readers into scenarios that test them as well as the characters whose stories they are reading?

If every story, every book, was about sugary-sweet people in ‘lovely’ situations, then writing could never really move the reader as it should. Imbue it with anger, grief, resentment, hatred and all the other strong human emotions that make up all our lives and your story will truly grab the reader.