This is a long, crunchy, deep-dive craft post for fiction writers who want their stories to land with more emotional resonance. I’ve been noticing a pattern in solid-but-not-quite-there fiction—including my own—and it boils down to this: meaningful story details. When our stories don’t connect with readers, the problem isn’t always character or conflict. Sometimes, it’s the way we’re taking the time to give the details of the story enough context to make them meaningful.
Intro
I’m seeing a few patterns in the work by some of my fellow authors, ones I know relatively well and who are writing and selling their work but aren’t breaking out to larger sales yet.
What are other (bestselling) writers doing that we aren’t doing?
I’ve got a theory.
The issues I’m seeing all involve the details in the story. The characters are great, the setting is cool, the conflict sounds neat. But the story isn’t dragging the reader through the way it should for some reason.
My problem is openings; I often lose readers at the beginning of a story. They bring assumptions to the story that I can’t control, and get derailed from the story that’s actually there. My usual technique for getting around this is to layer in a lot of rich, thick atmosphere before the action of the plot starts. It works okay; it gives the reader time to set their expectations to the side and get immersed into the world of the story. But not every story needs to start with pates of detailed descriptions.
Some other writers I know are struggling to give their readers enough context to pull them through the story, giving meaningful details versus merely descriptive ones. The stories are reading as sort of flat, either because the author isn’t putting in description, or because the description they’re putting in feels kind of skippable.
Finally, yet other authors I know are struggling to define the difference between a merely okay ending and a satisfying one. The plot is good, but the ending…lacks oomph.
The thing is, each of these problems seems to take care of itself when you answer the question:
But why does that matter for the reader?
Pattern #1: Openings
While writing a recent story, “Late Checkin,” that required a faster-paced opening, I originally started with:
“Hello? I need to check in.”
“Name?”
“Reese Halden.”
“You already checked in.”
It’s not an explosive action sequence, but it caught my attention. As I built the rest of the story, however, it was difficult for me to sustain the scene around the character. Starting with two unseen people in an undescribed location did not keep my interest. How was it supposed to keep my readers’?
After much back and forth about what other details I should start with, I came back to the dialogue and asked, “But what do I need to explain, that makes that matter for the reader?”
Here’s the new opening:
A tiny space heater hummed beneath the hotel check-in counter, but the shallow, glassed-in office still had the bite of I-70 road ice on the inside. Reese’s breath still fogged after the reinforced door had closed behind them. They stamped their feet on the rubber floor mat, knocking off dirty slush. The office smelled faintly of diesel.
The traffic outside crunched and hissed on frozen streets. The sign on the door said OFFICE HOURS 6 A.M. TO MIDNIGHT.
It was after midnight.
“Hello? I need to check in.”
The woman behind the counter didn’t look up. Colored light flashed on the bottom of her chin. She must be on her phone.
“Name?”
“Reese Halden.”
The woman, heavy, dark-rimmed glasses over a blocky square face padded out with sagging skin, looked up. No expression. “You already checked in.”
For each detail, I can answer the question of “But why does that matter for the reader?” clearly. There’s a setting, some characters who are clearly different from each other, and a problem. This helps bring the reader into the story. There’s also a bunch of setup for the plot twist in the middle of the story and for the resolution at the end of the story here.
But nothing else.
I probably deleted three times as many words out of the opening as you see here. Because I’m practicing a new technique (being efficient with details), I first had to add a lot of details, the remove as many as possible. Multiple times.
Pattern #2: Grounding the reader.
I’m reading or editing different authors’ works pre-publication at the moment; I won’t call the authors out by name, but they seem to share a pattern.
I’ll be happily reading along and the author will write a bunch of details, then jump to some conclusion that I can’t immediately follow. It makes me feel stupid and tired and I really just want to put the manuscript down. (I can’t say I’m immune to this pattern myself, either!)
So an author will write something like:
The copper kettle screamed just as the shadows deepened on the east wall. Marla tightened the laces on her boots one loop at a time. The red scarf was still damp, despite having hung by the fire since morning. A single crow tapped at the window, then flew off without a sound. She paused, glanced at the locked drawer, and slipped the iron key into her pocket.
Clearly, the envoy must have been discovered.
And I’m left going, “…what?”
Authors, and I am probably more guilty of this than anyone, often write down what’s in their heads without making sure the reader can follow their ideas. We get excited! and just write everything down in whatever order that comes to us, trusting that we’ll be able to edit things into shape later.
Wouldn’t it be better to add context as we go, though?
Like this:
It was late afternoon, and Marla had been in the abbey’s kitchen garden all morning, trying to keep herself away from the abbess’s eye as much as possible. But finally it was time for Marla to go back to her own cottage and admit that her niece was late in arriving from her husband’s farm on the other side of the mill pond. Late for tea, as she never was.
The copper kettle screamed just as the shadows deepened on the east wall. Marla banked the fire and took off the kettle and hung it on the hook to keep it warm, but not too warm; she didn’t know when she’d be back.
It had been a day of bad omens: the red scarf was still damp from the previous night’s dunking in the pond, despite having hung by the fire since morning. A single crow—not one of Marla’s regulars, it had a scar sealing one eye shut—tapped at the window, then flew off without a sound. And still no Melissa, smiling and winking and trying to make it sound as though Marla was hiding a new beau instead of a sick envoy bearing secret letters.
Marla tightened the laces on her boots one loop at a time. She needed to check their impromptu shelter near the pond and see if anything had happened to the queen’s shivering envoy since she and Melissa had left him there at dawn this morning.
She paused, glanced at the locked drawer where the envoy’s still-sealed letter lay, and slipped the iron key into her pocket.
Clearly, the envoy must have been been discovered.
I took the first description, asked, “But why does that matter for the reader?” and put the answers into the text, giving the answers before I reached each detail.
First I taught the reader what was important about the story; then I gave the details.
A lot of writers are scattering this stuff throughout their stories, starting off with whatever random opening interests them, then having their POV character make mental notes whenever anything important about the world occurs to the author.
Too scattered.
Too late.
Too many excuses: “You should have remembered this one detail from five chapters ago that had no meaning or context; aren’t I, the author, so clever?”
But stuff like that is always bullshit. It’s the author’s job to make the reader feel clever.
Unless you’re talking about a clue in a mystery novel. Then the reader is supposed to work in order to feel clever—so feel free to take out all the context!
Pattern #3: Endings
The usual advice I hear about writing endings is to go back to the beginning. But why? What exactly is in the beginning that helps you write a better ending?
The beginning of the story is where you set up the worldbuilding in the story: the place and time and rules of the story, which can be anything—as long as they’re consistent. In a high fantasy novel, the rules might include a neat way to do magic. In a sci-fi novel spanning galactic empires, the rules might include how to move faster than light.
But the rules can be anything.
In a romance, the rules might include: no conflicts that are caused by the characters not trusting each other. The rules of a mystery might include the rule: supernatural omens are valid clues, but like other clues, they can be misleading. A thriller might include the rule: switch continents every 100 pages.
The rules can be meaningful to the story or not, like the book where the letter “e” was never used.
But if you want the ending to be satisfying, you have to make sure the rules pay off in a logical way that isn’t obvious—and then you have to explain the payoff to the reader.
You have to answer the question, “But why does that matter for the reader?”
Maybe it’s just the writers I personally know, but a lot of us have really clever endings…and we don’t bother to make them meaningful to the readers. Which is a relatively easy fix!
So let’s say you have a story that you know has a decent ending, but the reader isn’t getting it.
I’m gonna sum up a simple romance plot here:
Shy barista Emma works at a cafe; every week or so she makes a cappuccino (the good kind, with all the foam) for a handsome customer who pays in cash and never leaves his name, but who sits at one of the tables near the cash register, writing in a leather journal. Every time he leaves, he slides a couple of extra bucks to her across the counter along with a sketch on ivory journal paper of her making coffees and talking to other customers.
This goes on for about six months—and then, one day, he stops showing up, just as she was about to work up the courage to talk to him! Or…not. She’s tried before and hasn’t worked up the courage.
One day, a different person enters the coffee shop with the journal and orders an iced mocha with extra whip—not a bad drink, but not the same drink as Emma’s favorite customer. When the customer leaves, they stop by the counter to slide a couple of dollars across the counter, along the journal, saying, “I think this is yours.”
Emma picks up the journal and flips through it. It’s full of sketches, not just of her, but of everyone around town. The last sketch is of her with her hair up the same way she has it today, looking up hopefully through the open door of the cafe.
The end.
I know, I know, that wasn’t fair. But we’re talking about what makes endings work, so first we gotta talk about an ending that doesn’t.
That’s an ending that doesn’t fit the rules of the story, which are something like: Emma is shy; the cappuccino customer shows interest in the barista and his interest has a pattern related to cappuccino, sketches, and the leather journal. The plot twist (of someone else bringing the journal to her) doesn’t work because it doesn’t follow the rules of the story.
Here’s a plot that follows the rules of the story:
Shy barista Emma works at a cafe; every week or so she makes a cappuccino (the good kind, with all the foam) for a handsome customer who pays in cash and never leaves his name, but who sits at one of the tables near the cash register, writing in a leather journal. Every time he leaves, he slides a couple of extra bucks to her across the counter along with a sketch on ivory journal paper of her making coffees and talking to other customers.
This goes on for about six months—and then, one day, he stops showing up, just as she was about to work up the courage to talk to him! Or…not. She’s tried before and hasn’t worked up the courage.
One day, a different person enters the coffee shop with the journal and orders an iced mocha with extra whip—not a bad drink, but not the same drink as Emma’s favorite customer. When the customer leaves, they stop by the counter to slide a couple of dollars across the counter, along the journal, saying, “I think this is yours.”
Emma picks up the journal and flips through it. It’s full of sketches, not just of her, but of everyone around town. The next to last one is of her with her hair up the same way she has it today, looking up hopefully through the open door of the cafe.
The last sketch is of her favorite customer, a self-portrait of him sitting at a table set for two at a nearby restaurant.
Below it is a note: “Meet me. Saturday at noon.”
The end.
That ending also isn’t fair! All the pieces are in place; the pattern satisfies the rules set out in the story (Emma is shy; the cappuccino customer shows interest in the barista and his interest has a pattern related to cappuccino, sketches, and the leather journal). But something is missing.
We’ve laid out a lovely plot, but we haven’t answered the real question:
“But why does that matter for the reader?”
So let’s answer that:
Emma picks up the journal and flips through it. It’s full of sketches, not just of her, but of everyone around town. The next to last sketch is of her with her hair up the same way she has it today, looking up hopefully through the open door of the cafe.
The last sketch is of her favorite customer, a self-portrait of him sitting at a table set for two at a nearby restaurant.
Below it is a note: “Meet me. Saturday at noon. I’ll be at a table by the window.”
She’s nervous and promises herself that she’ll go, or she won’t go, a dozen times before Saturday—but finally decides to leave work early and go. A customer causes problems at the last minute, the person covering the rest of her shift is late, she has to run all the way to the restaurant, but she makes it! Only a few minutes late.
No one is at the table. Her face screws up in disappointment and her shoulders slump. Isn’t this the way life always is? Even when you try your hardest to reach out to other people, life gets in the way. So why even bother? Why risk the disappointment?
She turns to leave, and her favorite customer is standing behind her, smiling nervously and wringing his hands together.
“Hi, Emma,” he says. “I, uh. Um. My name is Cappuccino. I like Edwards. Do you remember me?”
She laughs. Of course she does. The last sketch in the journal—a month and a bunch of sketches later—is of the two of them together on a bench in a nearby park, kissing.
The end.
In a lot of authors’ heads (me included), it’s okay to stop when the plot is done—you told the story that you needed to tell and the reader should be able to figure out what the story meant, because it should have been obvious.
And yet the ending that explains why the story is meaningful is usually the one that’s most rewarding for the reader. (Some stories break this rule, but it’s tricky to pull off because you have to hide the same details elsewhere in the story. At any rate, those types of stories are not what we’re discussing today.)
The plot only requires that the two characters get together without breaking the rules. The meaning requires that the reader understand that the way the plot was told was important somehow. Here the meaning isn’t too complex: the complicated rules around the two people getting to know each other was based on shyness, not cruelty or mistrust as such.
The details that you need at the end of the story—the ones that make it satisfying—are the ones that explain why the plot was the way it was.
In the end, readers read for meaning
Not the kind of big-picture meaning that earns books literary awards, but the little kind of meaning that explains why each detail of a story is important, within the context of the story.
I said I had a theory, right?
About what other writers were doing that some of us are not?
Your details can be the most interesting, fascinating details about your world that you could possibly come up with. Your sentences can be elegant and grammatically correct and they can 100% ground the reader in your world. And you can have the most brilliant plot and ending in the world…
…and none of that matters if the reader doesn’t know why the details are there.
Of course that means that sometimes you gotta add more and more details in order to give context to the details that are actually important, and sometimes you gotta think really hard about how to strip out details so that you have enough details to give context, and sometimes you get to the end of a story and you need to stop and explain things to readers that seem perfectly obvious (inside your head).
Adding details meaningfully doesn’t have a straightforward solution.
Which is good, or stories would all kind of look and feel similar. And they shouldn’t.
But adding details meaningfully does have a straightforward question, so when you’re stuck with some issue on a story that should work but doesn’t, take a moment to ask:
But why does that matter for the reader?
Answer that—in the beginning, clearly throughout the story, and especially at the end—and you’ll probably be thrilled at how your stories are received.
I highly recommend going back to that one story you wrote where it should have come across as way more awesome than it did, and ask the question.
Then write the answer into the story.
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