Our words should grab attention quickly and make readers part of the action.
We need to think in cinematic terms.
Movie watchers will change channels if they aren’t immediately pulled into the scene. After fifteen minutes, if they realize they are still sitting on the couch, watching TV, they’ll do something else. They won’t tolerate the feeling of being an observer. They must become a part of what is happening.
Engage readers with a deep point of view.
The goal of “deep point of view” is to make readers part of the action, so they feel the pain and pleasures of the character. That means you need to limit your story to only what the viewpoint character can sense at that moment. Do that and readers become the character. They don’t want to do something else, because they’re part of the action and want to find out what happens next.
Today’s readers want to be participants, not observers.
Achieving this fulfills the “show, don’t tell” initiative to change the reader’s role from observer to participant.
Suppose a news story describe an accident. Not a big deal. You hear about that sort of thing all the time, right? But if that person is someone you know, it becomes somewhat personal.
But you can do better. Describe what happens with you being the one in car, feeling the panic as the tires squeal. You hear the fender crunch and see steam rising from beneath the hood. That’s much more personal. It’s life-changing, the cinematic effect we want in our stories.
