The technique that puts fresh air into your writing and keep readers turning pages
Introducing: The Zoom Out!
Hello and Happy Wednesday!
Did you make it through Thanksgiving? Was it good, outrageous, a little bit of both? I hope you got some rest and laughter crammed into the weekend and that whatever your favorite holiday food was, it tasted how you wanted. We spent the weekend at a friend’s log cabin playing charades and eating turkey every way that it can possibly be repurposed (my favorite is in stew)—it was a great time.
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Today I want to talk about a narrative technique I rely on in my writing and gravitate toward as a reader, regardless of whether I’m reading a novel or nonfiction. I call it “the zoom out” technique for lack of a more professional term.
You can probably recall times as a reader where you felt suffocated by someone’s prose. That “more of the same” feeling is one of the reasons a reader puts a book down, turns off an audiobook, doesn’t respond to your query letter, doesn’t buy your book. Keeping readers turning pages isn’t just about nailing plot, it’s also about keeping readers delighted, educated, and on their toes throughout your story.
In fiction, my favorite way to do this is by zooming out with a short section of prose that explores a topic that is either pertinent to what I’m writing in the larger narrative or seemingly off-topic in the short term, but on-topic in the long run. Zooming out to larger topics keeps one’s writing fresh and educational—I’ve alluded to “education” twice because giving readers quirky insight on a topic is one of the best ways to keep them hydrated, intrigued and energized. In other words, it’s a way to keep readers with you until you type THE END.
I’m going to show you examples of the zoom out technique from my own writing—both memoir and nonfiction, new writing and old—to illustrate how I do this personally, then I’ll cite other writers whom I think do the zoom out well.
I’m hoping these examples will show you how to do the following in your own work:
Avoid a run-on of interiority-heavy writing, especially in the first person POV.
Overcome navel-gazing in memoir.
Maintain narrative momentum without relying too heavily on plot.
Keep your writing feeling fresh, unique, intelligent.
Ready? Here we go.