Gift wrapping

My ‘second rule of writing’ wot I made up myself on some long train journey, is ‘Always entertain.’ This is a simplified version of the note I originally jotted down, which was, ‘Your first duty is to this moment now.’ That is, 99% of writing is about what’s on the page NOW.

I realised this was important when buying books by Terry Pratchett. You don’t really read Pratchett for his plots (good as they are) nor emotional depth (though it is there); you read him because he makes you laugh like a drain. And the quickest way to slide into a Pratchett purchase is to open any of his books to a random page and read. Chances are you will laugh out loud in the bookshop and have to leave quickly, book in hand, before authorities are called. This happens because TP has made sure that virtually every page of his novels is entertaining in its own right, irrespective of its function in the story. Mere mortals can only stare in envy, but it’s something worth aiming at.

Reading a draft of a work-in-progress, you will often find a duller passage and try your best to justify it. Usually it’s for exposition purposes. ‘Oh, this has to be here to set up what will happen on page 138.’ Sorry, no-one cares about that. Your job is entertaining the reader now, not in some distant chapter that they’ll probably never reach. In other words, if you do have a vital piece of exposition, try to turn it into drama (or humour) in its own right. This can also have the added effect of disguising the exposition, so that the reader doesn’t necessarily think, ‘Aha, he’s building to something.’ Cheap wrapping paper is see-through; good quality wrapping paper looks as good as the gift.