An Experiment in Writing – Part 58: Interesting to Whom? (keeping it interesting for author and reader)
Joseph Carrabis -
November 19, 2025
CharactersDialogueExperiments in WritingFor AuthorsPlotSettingStoryCraftingStoryTellingStyleTone

I ask myself during all stages of writing – rough draft through publishable product – Is what I’ve written interesting where I’ve written it?

I may have written something dang good but if it doesn’t belong, it doesn’t belong. It’s a kind of “Kill your darlings” philosophy I employ to make sure the plot lines and throughlines stay intact – aren’t interrupted by something quite interesting but irrelevant to the immediate scene. Something interesting in the wrong place is a distraction. At best it might slow the reader down, at worst it may so confuse them they stop reading and walk away never to return. What I’ve written may be dynamite somewhere else in the story, simply not where I wrote it.

This flows into keeping the story interesting to both writer and reader. I’m not sure about you, and I’m able to detect whether an author is interested in their subject matter nine-out-of-ten times. Their tone is off, their pacing is off, … basically the work is lifeless because interest creates excitement and excitement has energy and energy can be transmitted from person A to person B through their writing.

But if the author’s not interested in their subject?

It may not be obvious to the majority of readers.

But readers and audiences in general will remember fire in the heart and on the page or screen and come back for more.

 

Here are some interesting books for you to read:Tales Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires Volume 2 and That Th!nk You Do Volume 2: Romance and Relationships.

Let me know what you think. Better, leave reviews so everyone will know what you think.

Think I’m onto something? Take a class with me, schedule a critique of your work, or buy me a coffee.
Think I’m an idiot? Let me know in a comment.
Either way, we’ll both learn something.

Get copies of my books because it’s a nice thing to do, you care, you can follow along, and I need the money. My latest is my fiction anthology Tales Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires Volume 2

FWIW, I hold a Creators RoundTable the last Thursday of every month from 7:30-8:30pmET. Watch past RoundTables. Register to participate.

All Experiments

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Experiments in Writing

1 – This is How It Begins
2 – Openings
3 – More on Openings, Closings
4 – More on Closings
5 – More on Openings – Establishing Voice, Atmosphere, Setting, and Narrator
6 – Authenticity
7 – Inciting Incidents
8 – Worthy Antagonists
9 – Final Conflicts Worth Reading
10 – Action Scenes (finally)
11 – Language and Word Choice
12 – Overwriting, Toing and Froing
13 – Exposition via Dialogue
14 – Exposition via Character Revelation via Deep POV
15 – Character Voice, Author Voice Part 1 – Character Voice
16 – Character Voice, Author Voice Part 2 – Author as Character
17 – Character Voice, Author Voice Part 3 – Author IS Character
18 – Character Voice, Author Voice Part 4 – Author Voice
19 – Plotlines, Timeslines, Throughlines
20 – Plotting, Pantzing, and Procrastinating – The 3Ps Every Author Should Know and Love
21 – More on Exposition via Dialogue – Holmeses&Watsons
22 – More on Plotlines, Timelines, and Throughlines
23 – Into the Mythic
24 – A Little More Into The Mythic, and The Rule of Three
25 – Accidental POV Shifts
26 – World-Building via 1stPPOV
27 – How to read as an author
28 – Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone Teaches Writing
29 – Character via Exposition
30 – What Happens Next?
31 – Who Haven’t I Written About Lately?
32 – Let the Characters Do the Work
33 – Writer’s Block versus Writer Stuck
34 – Editing
35 – Write Moments and Feelings
36 – Timeline and Plotline Convergence (an Example)
37 – Time Manglement
38 – Subjectively Objective and Objectively Subjective
39 – The First Word
40 – Blurbs, Pitches, and But-Then-Except
41 – An Example of “The First Word”
42 – Technique versus Craft
43 – A Humbling Experience – Robin Wilkey Gregory’s Killing Time
44 – What’s a ‘Flaknoc’? (revealing anything through character interactions)
45 – Drinking the Sand
46 – Atrribution via Action (and a little bit more)
47 – Overwhelmedness
48 – An Experiment in Writing – Part 48: Eating My Own Dogfood (more on reading like an editor, critiquing your own work)
49 – An Experiment in Writing – Part 49: Write/Be/Do What Interests You
50 – Match Narrative Voice to Character Voice
51 – Marketing is a Four-Letter Word
52 – Subtlety
53 – An Example of Poor Story Crafting
54 – You’re not Stephen King, Nora Roberts, JK Rowling, Dan Brown, … so get over it
55 – Backcover copy and Blurbs (again)
56 – Creating Tension, Building Tension
57 – More on Character Voice (Showing Change through Tone, Language, Behavior)
58 – Interesting to Whom? (keeping it interesting for author and reader)
59 – Unreliable Witnesses

60 – HELP! (I need somebody)[/callout]