On Trust, Dumb Jokes, and Amusement Park Rides

What I learned on my summer vacation

Hey friends!

First! TONIGHT! Tuesday, August 19th, 8pm ET, I will be speaking with the one and only Hugo, Locus, and Nebula award-winning author Mary Robinette Kowal about WRITE THROUGH IT and also we will be taking questions! It’s a virtual event so anyone can come and it’s FREE!

Second! I will be in Kingston, NY on Tuesday, Sept 16th 6pm ET, live and in person, reading at Rough Draft bookstore’s Night School reading series! I’ll be with three other amazing authors, so if you’re in the area, come say hi!

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Now, on to the actual stuff I want to talk about today.

I have recently had three revelations in three very different scenarios: 1. while watching a zombie movie, 2: while watching the original Naked Gun movie, 3: on an amusement park ride at Coney Island. I didn’t realize until later that they were all related and they’re all about TRUST.

Several weeks (months? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) ago, I went to see 28 Years Later with my husband, a movie about fast- and slow-moving zombies, in case you’re not familiar. I’d seen the other two installments of this franchise, and while I am not usually a horror movie watcher, I liked the previous ones because they were surprising and different and a little scrappy. So I muscled up and went to the third one. The beginning of this movie is very tense and scary!!! I was not really enjoying that!!! But, I said to myself this is not real and no one is in danger over and over again. I think in movies especially, I get very caught up in the new reality the movie builds and sometimes I find it overwhelming (or, at least in good movies). Reminding myself that I was watching a movie and that no actors were harmed by zombies in its making, I was able to relax and enjoy the movie for what it was—a scary zombie movie. Maybe other people have figured this part out, but I just got there. The movie did what I wanted a zombie movie to do (scare me), but in new, different, interesting ways. And this realization allowed me to let the movie be what it was going to be so I could enjoy it on its own terms. I could trust the director and actors and writers and let the experience of the movie wash over me. And then I could decide what I thought of it. (I liked it!)

More recently, my husband selected the original Naked Gun (1988) for movie night. He loves movies and I merely like them and I will admit I rolled my eyes at this choice. I am not a dumb-humor, sight-gag, farce, send-up, goofy jokes movie fan. But after watching this, I’m questioning why I’m not. I didn’t have much invested in the watching of this movie (I could have always gone and read a book if I didn’t want to watch it, and frankly I like it when my husband just picks something because I have constant decision fatigue), but instead of dismissing the movie, I just watched it and let it be what it was. I trusted the actors and writers and directors that they knew what they were doing and what they were doing was in the bounds of their goals, and if it was funny, I laughed, and if it was crass, I laughed, and if it was dumb, I groaned. The point of this movie is to fit in as many jokes as humanly possible in 85 minutes and you know what? They crushed it. There’s even a muppet-level, throwaway joke where a piece of rotten cheese inches its away across the top of a fridge, now animated with mold-life. Maybe for the first time, I was able to meet this movie, and this type of movie, exactly where it is and enjoy it for what it is. Maybe this time, aided by my revelations at the zombie movie, I got out of my own way and just enjoyed it? I don’t think I will enjoy all movies in this genre now, but this one worked for me this time.

For my third revelation about trust, I wasn’t watching a movie. I was with my kid and their friend on a ride at Coney Island. We went on a lot of rides that day (wherein I discovered I am too old for amusement park rides) and this particular one was basically a big swing set/carousel that went high, high, high. I’m not afraid of heights too much and I willingly when on this ride, but there was a moment where I was like maybe this is not fun anymore!!!!! maybe I don’t actually want to be up this high!!! Which, fair. I was open to the idea that my feelings on amusement park rides had changed in the last 30 years and I could choose to not do them anymore. Or, I could just go with it. Like the zombie movie, the point of this ride was to thrill me, to scare me, to get my heart rate up. I wasn’t in any real danger. (I mean, sure it the ride could break and we could have all plummeted to our death, but the actual chances of that are slim and this wasn’t a rickety, traveling-carnival type ride. I did allow my child to go on it, so I believed it to be safe.) I wasn’t going to fall. I wasn’t going to slip out and splat on the pavement. From up there, I could see the whole beach, the hundreds of colorful umbrellas, the surf, the other rides, the Cyclones baseball game, the rest of south Brooklyn. It was a hot, beautiful, sunny day and the breeze up there felt great and I was having a great time with my kid and their friend. I had the privilege of being the cool mom and saying you know what, let’s go on everything. I let the ride carry me up up up, and when I was done with rides, I stopped and let the kids go on a few more and then we went home, cheeks hurting from smiling so much. I trusted that ride and it delivered.

What does this have to do with writing? You have to trust the author of each book. Some authors don’t earn your trust, and that’s how it goes. You can read another book. But each book has to show you what it’s going to be and you have to trust that it’s going to do it’s job within those bounds. When it’s done, you get to judge whether or not the author was successful. The end. This means, too, that if you’re reading a romance novel, you trust that the author is going to give you the stuff you want/expect to be in a romance novel because that’s the agreement you’re entering into when you pick up that book. If you don’t get what you want/expect, you can judge whether your expectations were subverted in a fun/new/interesting way, or not. You don’t read a romance novel and then get mad there was a happily ever after (I mean, you can but that’s probably on you, not the author). If you trust the author, you’ll likely be willing to follow them wherever the lead and that creates an enjoyable reading experience.

If you’re the author, you have to build that trust. The way you do that is by creating a world the reader understands and can lose themself in, that meets their expectations within the bounds of your story/genre. You might think that means you have to pander to the reader, or dumb your book down, or make it boring and predictable, and the choices you make as a writer could result in a dumb, boring, predictable book. A good writer (and remember there are many definitions of “good”) does all these things as well as delight, surprise the reader, etc. When you take the reader along with you, when you are aware of how they might react to what you’re trying to do, you can build trust with the reader, and they’ll follow you almost anywhere.

There’s a fine balance between what the writer wants their book to be, for example a high literary novel and a best-selling commercial success, and what the reader thinks it’s going to be, for example a beach read, a cozy read, an engrossing read, a thrilling read, etc etc etc. Books can be more than one thing. But what you can do, as a writer, is sit back and think about what you realistically want the book to be for a reader. Will it be the best book they’ve read all year? Will it be the one the press into their friends’ hands and say you must read this immediately? Will it be the one people go to over and over again for help, guidance, support? What do you think the cover could look like and how would it compare to others like it? What will the cover say to the reader about what they can expect from the book? What would you expect from a book like that?

How does the pacing of your book set up expectations for the reader? How does the language meet or subvert those expectations? What about the resolution? Do your characters act in aways the reader can reasonably anticipate, or are they out of pocket for the sake of being out of pocket? Are you, the author, using any of these aspects to manipulate the reader, and in a good way (fun, exciting, new) or a bad way (to be attention-seeking, to be pointedly subversive, to shock or the sake of shocking)? None of these questions are easy to answer from the writer’s seat. Sometimes they change over the course of the writing. Some readers will not come to the conclusions you intend them to reach. Some will not pick up what you’re putting down. That’s ok. But spending some time thinking about readers’ expectations, and whether they can trust you or not as a writer is worth the effort it takes. You aren’t going to create a checklist and tick things off and end up with a Gold Star Readers Can Trust Me Seal of Approval. You have to trust yourself, and your writer’s instincts and experience, hard won over many years of writing, and see what happens. Each book will be different and each book will teach you new things.

Trust the ride will not crash to the ground. Trust the movie knows its jokes are dumb, and they’re doing it on purpose. Consider what the reader expects and take them along with you on the journey of your book. And readers, trust books know what they’re doing, and if you don’t like it, find another book.

XOXOOXOX,

Kate