I was talking to an avid reader of my newsletters earlier today and she told me about her impressively long (90,000 words, after being edited down) story. She said it was quite dense with text. That got me thinking about something I often use to break up text, in memoirs, and anywhere I want to keep the readers interested.
Namely: subheadings.
Now this may not seem like an exciting thing to talk about. But they sure do help keep the reader engaged when they’re wading through pages of text.
I also talked about subheadings two years ago in this blog, featuring me at two Golden Bay beaches: One trick to make long pages of text more interesting when you’re writing your memoir.
Sexy subheadings.
See what I did there? That was an example of a subheading.
When you’ve writing long screeds of text, unless you’re a captivating writer who easily holds the reader’s attention with strong plots and irresistible characters (and you may well be), the occasional subheading can keep people interested.
It was love at first sight when I met your mother, but she barely noticed me
I quite like making up subheadings.
Sure, have your chapters, but if you’re worried about your text being too dense and potentially boring your readers, lure them in with subheadings about the most interesting parts of your chapters.
Your 100 words (ahem, that was another subheading there)
And finally, lately I’ve been asking readers to share 100 words from their stories. Here are 90 words from Gaylene Wilkinson:
Given the short tropical twilight, our thoughts turned to where we would settle for the hours of darkness. Exploring around the island a bit brought us to a wide, old lava flow where there was little shelter.
Returning to the stony beach a flat spot was found at the edge of the scrubby bush. I felt an irrational need to be close to the ocean, my link to Tony. We quickly built a rough two-sided windbreak out of driftwood and lay one lifejacket down to insulate us from the ground.
What did you feel as you read this? What first struck me was the fascinating idea that they were possibly stranded on a tropical island. Then I wondered who Tony was. I could feel the pang of longing for Tony in Gaylene’s words. How about you?
Would you like to share 100 words from your story? Just reply to this email with yours.
And keep writing, dear one, because your story matters.
Charlotte x
PS Award winning author Gerard Hindmarsh is speaking to members of my online course Write Your Memoir about his writing process next Tuesday evening. Join up if you’d like to be included in the online video chat with Gerard, then do my course and learn everything you need to write your memoir. More info about joining here.
Charlotte Squire 