Tyler Durden’s Rules For Writing In The Zone

As a reader I want to be touched by a story. As a writer, then, you should want to punch me in the gut with your story. The effect of an event is diminished through text. That's why people who care the most about strife in Rwanda have actually been there, and people who care the most about prostate cancer have had it. As writers we wonder how we can get people to feel with that terrible diminishing effect in action.

To get me to feel an event even through the dampening medium of text you have to punch with as much force as you can. Trust me, I'm not going to feel the full force of the blow.

Your sentences should be punchy. If you are writing a sad sentence make it the saddest freaking sentence ever. Hit them with that sadness where it hurts. Try to kill them with words alone. It's hard to imagine anyone killing themselves over a short story, but if someone had I'd want to read that story too--it'd be the best goddamn story I'll ever read.

Even if you don't manage to kick my ass I'll notice the effort. I'll feel you flailing your arms against the text, kicking and screaming bloody murder. And I'll appreciate your text and your exertion. I'll think to myself, "Hot damn, she's sweating blood to get me to care, I'd better pay some attention."

You know what readers like to taste more than anything else? An author's tears. We're such cunts that unless we can taste your frustration and anger at our apathy in your words we won't even digest what you are saying.

--

This is just what I imagine Tyler Durden saying to the author of this article, in case that was unclear.

(Maybe I was just turned off by the shirtless bleeding guy. You know, it's possible to tell a story without screenshots from movies...)

...yep.