WTF? No, really....

Last week I posted about the big WHY, why we have to make the reader NEED to know why things happened, so they’ll keep reading.

But there’s another question, one you as the writer needs to make sure the reader never asks…the dreaded “WTF?!”

The WTF (“What The Fruitloops?” for those of you of more delicate leanings) is something that can kill your book faster than a tan line burns at a nude beach.

This dreaded affliction occurs when the author needs something to happen, or someone to have done something, and just does it. On a chess board it would mean ignoring all the rules about moves and taking the Queen on your first move just by picking your piece up and sending it over.

It’s easy to do, and sometimes writers who are prone to fast down and dirty rough drafts will skip steps thinking they’ll go back later and fill it in. The problem appears when they don’t go back and fix it, or when a writer gets sloppy, lazy, or doesn’t have a few beta readers to save their rear.

Sloppy and lazy are not good attributes for any writer. If you care enough to write- don’t shoot yourself in the foot because you got sloppy or lazy. Always ask yourself the why question in terms of why did your characters do that action? Is the tension between them believable or convenient? Does their behavior make sense? You have to be brutally honest when you start poking around. Since YOU know how the story goes, it could very well seem real and believable to you because your mind is filling in the missing pieces.

But unless your readers are all going to set up camp in your crowded cranium, they need to be able to follow a logical and believable path to your conclusions (whether those be actions, thoughts, or dialogue). A good beta reader (or two, or half a dozen) can massively save this from happening.

Another painful WTF moment can come about from not knowing an area. Such as stating someone could leave San Diego, CA and be in San Francisco, CA in five hours- in a car. Or that Pasadena, CA is next to the ocean. Make sure you understand your locations if you’re sticking with the real world. If you’ve got your own world, make it consistent.

Yet another class of WTF troubles, is basic science. Now, you don’t have to assume that your readers all have advanced science degrees, but have a basic understanding. Years ago I read a book where they very carefully made a point of both biological parents having blue eyes. And the kid had huge brown eyes. I don’t recall the book, but that was a big ‘WTF?’ moment for me, and I think that, combined with other issues, caused the book to be tossed into the donate bin.

For those of you who have forgotten their college biology, two blue eyed folks can’t produce a brown eyed kid (go look up recessive genes online- it CANNOT happen). Two brown eyed parents could create blue eyed kids, but not the other way around. Now, not everyone remembers that, but for those who do- it’s going to cause some problems. Yeah, eye color isn’t a big thing, but anything that can knock the reader out of YOUR world and back into their own is a bad thing.

So make sure that you are making your readers ask the RIGHT questions (the ones you have built for them to ask) and not the wrong ones.

What about you, when you read and/ or write, what "WTF?" moments have tripped you up?

Thanks for coming by!