Give directions to your reader so they don’t get lost.

Long ago, in the days of actual paper maps, I was driving in a neighborhood I didn’t know. My purpose and destination are long forgotten, also irrelevant. Back to the story:

I stopped to ask for directions. The conversation went like this: 

“Can you tell me how to get to fill-in-the-blank?”

“Sure. Just go to the donut shop and make a left.”

“Actually, I’ve never been here before, so I don't know where the donut shop is.”

“It’s on the same street as that big lumberyard. Can’t miss it.”

I get a bad feeling about how this is going. I smile.

”Thanks, but I don’t know this area, so I don’t know where the lumberyard is either. Can you just give me directions?”

At this point my helpful samaritan is looking at me like I’m an idiot. 

“Okay,” he says, nice and slow, “the lumberyard is near the high school. Go to the high school and head down the road on the far side of it, where the gymnasium is. Pretty soon you'll see the lumberyard. Drive a little bit more, past where the tire repair place used to be, and the donut shop is right there....”

You see why I’m so grateful that the GPS was invented. 

But here’s the point of my story: To orient a person who has no frame of reference at all requires us to think differently than we usually do. What’s obvious to us is incomprehensible to them.

And this brings me to today’s pithy nugget of writing advice: 

A book that’s hard to follow is all too easy to put down.

To write books that our readers put down in confused despair after a chapter or two is not what we want. Yet even the most well-intentioned writers can fall into the donut-shop trap.

They’re so familiar with their own book that they forget that the reader is new in town. The reader knows nothing! They've just arrived at your fictional party. They don’t know where to put their coats or where the restroom might be.

And it’s your job, dear storyteller, to be a good host, make all the proper introductions and help your guests get their bearings. Then and only then can they relax and enjoy the party.

Writers who’ve been taught to “start with action” or “start in the middle of a scene” are extra prone to making the donut-shop error.

Starting in the middle of a scene is a perfectly good technique, but it doesn’t change the fact that you, the host, have a newly arrived guest hanging on your arm who needs you to at least whisper the basics of who’s who and what’s what in their ear.

And you need to do this as the action proceeds. Not a chapter later, but right then, when the information is needed, and before confusion sets in.

Clarity is a virtue of good writing, but it’s especially so in the beginning pages of your book. Be a good host to your readers. If you make them feel at home, they might just stay a while!