Learning from UX.
In my coaching and editing practice, I work with nonfiction authors as well as fiction ones. I have worked with a good number of people from the tech world, specifically UX design.
If you’re not familiar with that field, UX means “User Experience” and a UX designer’s purpose is to make a comfortable, meaningful, and intuitive experience for… well, the user, generally of a website, app, or other software.
You might think that means they do all the coding to create these programs, or perhaps they “make things pretty.” But that’s not it at all.
They need to know the end user intimately, understanding how they think, what they’re used to, and how they naturally interact with things.
What does that mean?
To make an experience comfortable, they need to make things easy to use. If it’s pleasant to look at, all the better, but even more so is the function. Maybe you’ve seen a website with beautiful pictures, and fonts, but it’s almost impossible to navigate because you can’t see where to click. Rather than comfortable, that’s frustrating.
To make an experience meaningful, the site/app/software needs to address something that the user actually wants. If you add a bunch of bells and whistles, cluttering things up and distracting from the one thing the user desperately needs, the experience borders on pointless.
Finally, to make an experience intuitive, you need to understand what the user would automatically do when presented with something. If they’re used to using a search bar, and you’ve got some fancy emoji system, even if it’s “easy” or “fun” they won’t understand it and you’ll lose them.
Let’s talk RX Design.
That’s not really a thing (although I’m thinking of making it one!) Still, I do mention reader experience often, especially in light of genre.
There are a lot of parallels in writing. As authors, we want to present a meaningful and enjoyable experience for our readers. And we do that through design.
That doesn’t mean typography and formatting. It goes further than our prosecraft, as well. It goes all the way to creating the characters and their plotlines, executing the story in a way that both fulfills the reader’s expectations and surpasses them.
Know your reader.
You want to understand your reader intimately.
That doesn’t mean understand all readers. Just your readers – the ones that are most likely to enjoy the kind of story you’re planning to write. If you’ve got an established audience, then you have a jump on this kind of knowledge.
Comfort.
What are your readers looking for? What is the base level of what they expect? That’s their deal breaker: if you don’t fulfill that, you may as well pack it up and go home.
That can mean making sure that there’s a compelling murder to solve. Or that there’s plenty of angst (or, conversely, very low angst) in your romance. Or that there’s epic, immersive world building in your high fantasy.
Entertainment.
At the same time, what have they seen done to death? There can be a fine line between comforting and boring; they might want everything that makes a cozy mystery or sweet romance or haunted house horror, but at the same time find it too predictable if you serve them the same old tropes and they can see every beat almost from reading the book description.
What kind of journey can you put characters through that will surprise and delight while fulfilling the baseline promise? Knowing your reader will tell you what they’ll be expecting… and how to twist it, using their expectations against them to shock, surprise, and delight.
Meaningful.
Knowing your readers will tell you what’s important to them. What their secret hopes and fears are; what fantasies they resonate with. This can be as simple yet profound as the fantasy of a found family, or as personal as the Cinderella trope (someone suffering in silence being recognized and rewarded.)
When you know what they respond to in your writing, you can lean in, or explore new aspects of it.
Intuitive.
This relates more to the wordsmithing, honestly.
While there is much to be lauded about experimenting with your writing, in commercial genre fiction, there also needs to be a certain level of intuitive use.
For example, thriller readers may be very familiar with third person past tense for the protagonist scenes, interspersed with brief first person present for the antagonist (killer.)
But if you had an urban fantasy where there were two protagonists, one whose scenes were in third present and the other in first past, the reader could follow, but would probably question your choices and be irritated shifting back and forth. You need to make sure that your choices are meaningful, not simply artistic flourishes or indulgent gimmicks.
Fiction is more deliberate than reality.
Even if you’re the most dedicated “pantser” writer on the planet, the fact remains: stories are a designed experience. Whether you do that design up front, or “fix it in post,” it’s still crafting, revising, and polishing something with the reader experience in mind.
The more you know the reader, and where and how to apply those expectations, the more impactful and ultimately successful your fiction will become.
Busy, busy, busy!
I’ve been hard at work on the beta version of my Rock Your Plot course, in addition to prepping for my July novel launch and a series of conference workshops I’ll be giving in New Zealand and Australia in August.
If you’d like to know more about the course…
Or, if you’d like the next newsletter to be about promotion or launch tips…
OR, if you have any travel tips for really, absurdly long flights…
Please email me! I’d love to hear from you!