Ways You Might Be Unintentionally Confusing Your Readers
One of the most exciting things for a reader to do is not only finding a book with an engaging narrative but also finding the author has crafted their book in an unusual fashion. Indeed, quite a lot of authors strive to be able to do just that—not only tell a good story, but find a way to innovate in the art of storytelling.
The thing is, sometimes those moments don’t quite land the way you, the author, intended, and in your desire to make something fresh and new, you’ve confused your reader. So we’re talking about a few ways that you might be confusing your readers without meaning to, and ways to get your story back on track. Although literature and writing don’t have a strict set of rules that every author must follow, many times breaking a literary or grammatical rule, tradition, or expectation works best when you know and understand the tradition you’re bucking.
POV Changes
Changing up the point-of-view in your story can seem like an easy way to help readers understand an event or a character better. It can also rattle readers and unsettle them. When you change POV a lot, or don’t give every character equal time, readers can get confused and put your book down. The perspective from which the book is told is key to setting the scene for your readers, so make sure that any POV changes are not only intentional, but give readers a firm enough foundation to stand on as they travel throughout your story with your characters. Setting a POV swap that readers can follow and expect grounds the story and helps readers invest in the characters and their journeys.
That way, when you intentionally buck the system of expected POV in a book, it can shake a reader and make them take notice of what is happening. Making sure your POV swaps happen intentionally will not only help keep readers grounded and invested in your story,but it can help ensure that POV swaps don’t cut narrative tension off at the knees. Balancing a POV swap that serves the narrative, follows an expected flow, or comes in an unexpected enough fashion that it jars readers in a good way is a challenge! It’s why so often an editor will tell you to cut the POV swaps, as it can be a big job to get different points of view to work in a novel. However, if done well, it can really pack a punch!
A great example of this is in book two of Rebecca Yarros’s Empyrean Series, Iron Flame. Both books are told from the perspective of our main character, Violet Sorrengail, and only one, brief chapter (Iron Flame is less than a year old at the time of writing this post, so no spoilers, promise) is in another character’s POV. But that perspective shift is placed in an intentional place, it is left short on purpose, and not only doesn’t it cut off the narrative tension, but it builds it in a huge way.
Overuse of Pronouns
Although it can feel cumbersome to continuously refer to your characters by their given names, at the same time, leaning too far into using pronouns to refer to characters can make your narrative confusing. This is often most noticeable in the middle of dialogue meant to be a quick-fire or heated exchange between characters, or in the middle of battles or other physical altercations.
Nothing slows down the pace of a read or pulls a reader out of a moment like not knowing what is going on and who is saying what. Because movies and television are such a big part of so many of our lives, as a writer, you can sometimes feel as if you’re doing your narrative a disservice when you provide your readers with more information than you think they need. But it’s important to remember that because your reader doesn’t have any visual cues to keep your characters straight, it’s vital to include those written touch points to help readers follow along. Indeed, some authors coddle their readers too much and guide them a little too strongly through their narrative, but making sure a reader understands the basics of who is saying what or who is stabbing whom in a battle isn’t going to derail the tension of a moment.
Of course, there are no firm and fast rules to literature, so including names (or some other written clue to let readers know who is doing what) might not work for you. Maybe you want to create a moment where the characters are arguing so much that the reader loses track of who is speaking. Perhaps you want a battle to be so wild and out-of-control that it’s impossible to tell who is who. Just be sure you pick those moments intentionally, as overusing those moments could stop your reader from connecting.
Overly Vague Book Openings
Who doesn’t love an atmospheric, spooky, unclear opening to a book, right? The thing is, it’s easy to skew into the land of being too vague. So often, authors want readers to know that their book is set in a mysterious world, they want to capture intrigue about the events that will serve as the catalyst to the story, and/or they want to keep a character’s true identity secret until a later point in the book. All of these things are great, but authors can often err by making everything too vague. Readers need a good foundation of where or when the book is set, the basic rules of the universe, and introductions and/or any grounding emotional pieces. The only thing introduced in overly vague openings are uncertainty and questions without a lick of set dressing or story introduction. Sometimes that works, but oftentimes it leaves readers confused and halts their investment in the characters and their story right from the jump.
Think of the opening of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone. That book begins with a section called “before,” and two of the characters featured in the section are simply referred to as “the girl” and “the boy”. The entire “before” section is written in third person (unlike the rest of the book, which is in first person), and as the reader finishes reading the “before” section,” they have a lot of questions as they begin the first proper chapter.
And yet, that opening works. Why? Because although Bardugo vagueness sets a mysterious tone for her book, she gives the readers enough to create the beginnings of a foundation of the world in which her book is set. She lets us know the girl and boy are orphans and not related. She lets us know they are orphaned thanks to a war, she uses the names of higher ranking officers to let us know this world isn’t set in the modern day, she lets us know that her world uses magic (or some understanding of it), and that some children are inherently gifted with these magical abilities from a young age. So while there are a lot of questions raised in a reader’s mind, foundational things like, “is this set in my reality or another one?” or, “is magic real in this book?” or even, “are these children siblings or just friends?” get answered immediately to allow readers to understand the universe of the book while also embracing and navigating a great deal of unknowns.
Ultimately, a story that keeps you guessing is a ton of fun to read! But it’s a very delicate line between keeping you guessing and losing your reader entirely. Typically, readers get lost when authors don’t offer them a basic foundation of knowledge to stand on as they begin journeying through a winding narrative.
Too Many Twists
There is nothing like reading a book or watching a movie or show and coming across a massive twist that you didn’t see coming. Think about the massive twist in Gone Girl or the end of Sixth Sense. However, sometimes writers can lose their audience when they bring out far too many twists without offering readers a firm foundation of information to stand on prior to the twist.
In the book September House, author Carissa Orlando tells the story of a woman who is determined to stay in her house even though it’s haunted. The author kicks off the story by letting readers know what foundational information they’ll need to move through the book: the house is haunted, our main character knows it, and she’s learned the “quirks” of her home’s haunting so she can live in the home safely. However, toward the end of the book (spoilers ahead) the reader and the main character are twisted around several times as the haunting is presented as being the product of the main character’s mental illness, only to go back to being an actual haunting.
Even though the book takes readers on a few twists, because the author spent so long making sure readers understood the initial rules of the house, and the rules and motivations of the main character, the first twist is effective and shocking. Then, because the reader is so invested and cares for the main character so much, they’re still able to follow along when the narrative twists a second time. In addition, the majority of the book doesn’t have those twists. Readers might suspect a twist is coming (I know I did when I was reading), but the author gave plenty of time for readers to understand the rules of the book’s universe and to really invest in and care about the main character. The twists were effective because they were used strategically, and they happened in moments that keyed up the narrative tension rather than just serving as something to jerk the reader around.
Plot twists, unlabeled time jumps, and other big narrative moments to subvert reader expectations are great. But if you’re packing your narrative with too many of those twists and not providing enough information to ground your reader in some way, chances are you might just lose your reader as opposed to taking them on a mind-bending adventure.
Writing fiction is all about trial and error, and there are no specific right or wrong answers. But sometimes it can be easy to not spot the places where you might be losing a reader, and working with an editor can help you polish up those moments to make them really cool and gratifying narrative moments. If you want to talk with us about partnering on your book, drop us a line! We can help you shape your book in a way that keeps readers guessing in a good way and clears up any unintentionally confusing moments.