Elements of Fiction (64)

Element 64: Attention

Attention, in my view, is a close cousin, if not a sibling, to Opening. I’m thinking about grabbing (and holding) the reader’s attention.

Of course, there is also the attention you pay to your task, something that should never flag — writing “on automatic” never produces much good.

Not too writers have treated attention as a fictional element, so the pickings are slim. Still, there’s this from Jorge Luis Borges, “I, as I write this, am only a certainty that seeks out the words that are most apt to compel your attention.”

Strunk and White instructs, “If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is this: the surest way to arouse and hold the reader’s attention is by being specific, definite, and concrete. The greatest writers — Homer, Dante, Shakespeare — are effectively large because they deal in particulars and report the details of the matter. Their words call up pictures.”

Then there’s this from Guy Davenport, “Homer would ask the muse to help him, we must invoke the imagination, or our aesthetic will, or some fashion in what’s getting published. Whatever we invoke, we are dependent on the reader’s attention.”

And this from ever vigilant John Gardner, “When an artist of true authority speaks — someone like Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Racine, Dostoevsky, or Melville — we listen, all attention, even if what he says seems at first a little queer.”

“Like the philosopher, the scientist, and the preacher, the artist bangs for the world’s attention and declares with gusto and conviction, It’s like this.”

And to warp it up, S.I. Hayakawa has this to say, “The opening of a story or play or poem has special significance in setting the point of view, establishing the mood, gaining the reader’s attention and interest.”

Yes, that’s a wrap. Happy writing.

© Wolfstuff