How to Get Your Audience Back in 5 Easy Steps

     My first novella is finished (as in actually, literally finished; no more writing on it allowed!) so I have naturally moved on to the next project. And this one will be considerably more involved than the last. Mainly because the original 'finished' version was well over 100,000 words instead of a mere 25,000. But it is also because there are a lot of important characters, complex backgrounds and interwoven subplots that are vital to the story. So this novel is, as I said, more involved. It will also, however, be more exciting as I begin the process of making it an interesting novel instead of just a mediocre novel, as it is now.
     I'm going to relay to you some of the fascinating things that I discovered as I reread the material and began outlining the changes I wanted to make in this new version. And these are things that I believe every writer should look at as they prepare to do any kind of rewrite.

1. Cut to the Chase
     The first chapter of the original version took my character from Scene 1 to Scene 2 in about 2,000+ words - the amount of words I now use to cover an entire first chapter, and it wasn't anywhere near done yet. It used up 1,000 of those words just to get around to introducing another character and including actual dialogue. And all of those 1,000 words were used to explain the situation the character found herself in.
     In the new version, my character broods for a grand 520 words (literally half that of the original) and spends less time explaining so that the audience, instead of being bored, has their curiosity aroused. Contrarily, I added over 100 words to the dialogue sequence - a part of the narrative that the audience actually would find interesting. My goal in this destroy-and-add-words binge? To skip all the gobblety-gook (as my grandmother would put it) and just tell the story.

2. Cut to the Important Characters
     Let's talk reality here. In real life, we meet up with dozens (even hundreds) of people that we'll never meet more than once or twice. We might politely exchange names; we might chat about school, work, the weather, even politics; we might say "see y'all soon". But we'll never actually see those people again. It's just how life works. So it makes sense to assume that to make a novel reflect real life, we have to have our main characters intermingle with at least a few nonessential characters here and there. The more, the merrier, right?
     Eh, WRONG! While unnamed nonessential characters do add a sense of reality to the novel (something important in a fantasy), they can become "those characters" that annoy the reader because we read about them once and never read about them again - especially if you already have two dozen essential characters floating around. The audience will never know whom they're supposed to keep track of. (And a well-laid-out glossary does NOT help in these instances!)
     The first step in this second step (pardon the repetition) is simple. Replace all nonessential personnel (particularly the named ones) with the minor characters your story is filled with. And voila! Your audience is instantly introduced to people they actually do have to keep track of, and they will inherently care more about what is going on in the story. If and when a nonessential could help you out a little (such as a random villager yelling "fire" or a bank teller being obnoxious), simply remember to keep them unnamed and their part in the story brief.

3. Cut the Narrative
     While briefly telling the audience what happened is important so we don't spend the whole six years in the dungeons, it can equally be frustrating if that's all the audience ever reads. For example, the first half of the original version of my novel spent well over 80% telling the audience what happened rather than letting them find out as the characters experienced it. It seemed important at the time; after all, nothing of significance was happening. Then I thought of something - if nothing of significance was happening, why am I boring my audience with this section?
     Easy way out - tell the audience. Challenging way - SHOW the audience. In this instance, it seems best if I try the challenging way so that my audience will actually want to get past the boring section of story to where the adventure REALLY begins. And that leads to Number Four...

4. Cut the In Between
     So the guy has to spend four years in college to get him to that final road trip across Europe. So what? Everybody has a dry spell in their life wherein nothing of importance happens. If we have to live through those spells, what makes us think we'd want to read about those spells? A writer's first instinct is often to "shorten" the boring sections by narrating what happens briefly. But if the time that elapses is long in any way, shape or form, the audience is going to fall asleep by paragraph two. We aren't being paid by the word like Charles Dickens, people! We can afford to - gasp - skip over the boring parts and launch right into the important stuff.
     "But what happens in the middle is what sets up the character for that road trip! It's essential to the story." Our whole lives are about us being set up for what takes place next. If we used that excuse every time, we never would get around to the actual ending, would we? The way to find a balance between not telling enough and telling way too much is to focus on the main conflict and its resolution. Not EVERYTHING that happened to this guy set him up for that road trip.
     Pick out the biggest, most memorable things that happened (even if he doesn't get how they all connect yet; let the audience figure that one out and they'll love you for the intrigue). Let the character experience them through dialogue and action rather than narrative. And go through it as briefly as possible.

5. Cut the Insights
     Speaking of the things that will happen to our characters...Our audience will know from the moment they pick up the book that something is going to happen to this character. So why bother them the whole way through by giving those "insights" that something is going to happen? They came for a surprise, not a teaser trailer!
     Sentences like "Little did she know what was inside" or "If he could only have known what was about to happen next" or (heaven help us) "this was going to change his life forever" have their place. Used sparsely (read: ONCE) they can add a hint of intrigue. It's when you use them at the end of every chapter (read: more than once) that the audience tires of them.
     Instead, make the audience ask the questions themselves throughout. And that will build up their curiosity. Answering those questions in a timely fashion will serve you much better than FINALLY telling the audience whatever it was that the character (duh!) didn't know.

     Well, that's it, folks - my five-steps-to-getting-your-audience-back lecture. I'll be using it a LOT as I write a new version of this old story. I hope you do, too, as you go through your own rewrites. Remember, your audience is a lot smarter than we authors give them credit for. Don't push them away by being boring and trite. Give them something that will make them share it with their friends (and pay good money to read the next one).

     Sincerely,
          Yours Truly