So I’ve been learning to dance with my Mom (you know the
woman who has read every book in the store—okay, not anymore, but for a long
time sci fi and fantasy didn’t produce enough books for her reading enjoyment,
so she read out the mystery section as well). She’s been dancing for a while
and I’m the n00b. And it’s a blast. The first two weeks were pretty nerve
wracking, but after I started to know people’s names, and it’s been a blast.
Whenever you first learn something, you’re just in a panic.
For me, that panic was trying to decode what the leaders were trying to tell me
to do. The biggest problem when you start out is that if you have any sense of
rhythm, people assume you know how to dance, so they try their moves on you.
For many people, this was a disaster. I just didn’t know the language.
But for some leaders, they could just spin me out and do a
whip and—by pure magic—I followed! I mean they were doing things I just didn’t
know how to do, but the cues they gave were so perfect that there was nothing
other than the right move as an option.
As you can imagine, this was confusing that sometimes
dancing was easy (and awesome!), and sometimes I was completely toe tied. After
a few more lessons, I was able to figure more of it out and do more with the
leads that weren’t as obvious (note, I didn’t say as good, I said not as
obvious). That’s when it hit me that dancing is like writing. Ever read that
book where you thought you understood it, but there was doubt? Yeah, that was a
book that either you didn’t come to it with the right background, or the writer
didn’t give you a good enough lead to follow them through the story.
Oh, and the other rule of dancing: It’s the leader’s fault.
Something goes wrong? Leader’s fault. Miss a turn? Yeah, the leader didn’t lead
it right. (hint, if you’re the writer, you’re the leader: it’s your fault when
the reader doesn’t follow you)
In some styles of dance, the lead is in close contact the
whole time. The contact is so constant and close, that the follower has no
option but to do as directed by the leader (it is a partnership and they wouldn’t
want to do anything else anyways). In other dances, the lead is with a couple
of fingers, and that’s because everything is so fast that anymore contact would
get in the way.
And that’s where the trouble comes. I definitely write like
a two fingered lead. I’ve always known this, but there are moments in the dance
where I could pause, and my followers (the readers) could catch a breath and
know they were on steady ground before spinning off into the action.
What are your thoughts on letting the reader catch their
breath?
