Three Ways You’re Losing Your Reader’s Trust

There’s no better feeling than being in the hands of a great storyteller. They have command of the details we need to know, the scenes we need to see, and there’s a lock-step feel to the way the story advances. Strong storytelling isn’t just a unique premise or a character we love.

Strong storytelling is rooted in trust.

Trust in the person who has crafted the story, but also trust in the viewpoint character. If we feel as though the character shares with us everything they know and allows us to be along for all critical moments of their story, we can feel as though we are that character.

Let’s discuss three very simple ways you might be breaking your reader’s trust, intentionally or not. We’ll also cover what to do so your reader feels like those strong storytelling hands they’re in are yours.

Trust Violation #1: When we allow the character to react before we’ve shown the reader what they’re reacting to.

Example: Holly stumbled backward. What she saw made her gasp. Could it be? There stood the man she thought was dead.

Notice how in the example, we have two lines of body language that point to surprise and shock, not to mention a third line where it’s clear she’s questioning whatever she’s seeing. All of these lines tell the reader how Holly (and how they) should feel before they even know what they’re seeing. On a small scale, this type of writing distances the reader from the character. The reader feels frustration for those three lines, waiting to see whatever it is that Holly’s seen. It backfires on Holly, the narrator, and even the writer because the reader starts to wonder why they aren’t being told what they need to know. In that span of time, they feel other—like they’re not Holly, which is what we don’t want at all. Instead, we want the reader to be in every moment with her, processing all her senses are processing in real time. That reinforces the feeling that the reader knows as much as she knows, and it shows the reader respect in leaving room for them to deduce how to feel when they first observe what the character does.

Bottom line: Present sensory-based action and observation first, and build in character reaction second.

Trust Violation #2: When we withhold a character’s name/identity just to perpetuate tension.

Example: Julie watched the figure make their way down the staircase. The way they moved was slow and sleek, commanding the attention of everyone below. Julie focused on the drink in her hand, determined not to let him control her the way he controlled everyone else. This was exactly why she left her ex-boyfriend in the first place.

In this example (somewhat like the first), we’re getting the character’s reaction before we’re entirely certain who or even really what they’re reacting to. To be fair, we do get movement and sensory-based action prior to Julie’s clear emotional reaction. But notice how for many lines, we have no idea who the “figure” is and Julie and the narrator do. Clearly, the space is well-lit based upon the details. Julie obviously knows who the figure is because she reacts in a specific way. And yet, we don’t get access to that same information in real time. A feeling creeps in from this type of withholding, and it’s something along the lines of being manipulated for the sake of drawing out the tension. The writer reveals themselves as the “man behind the curtain” and the writing draws attention to itself. When we use this type of writing, we aren’t keeping the figure’s identity unknown for a reason rooted in logic or plot. The figure isn’t wearing a disguise or hidden for some other reason. It’s evident Julie (and the writer) knows who he is. So why not just use their name? Why not tell us all that the character knows when she knows it? The answer is that there isn’t a reason, and readers will inherently know we’re pulling strings to tap into their curiosity.

Bottom line: Let us fully know all your viewpoint character knows the moment they know it. Avoid using tricks that withhold names or other information for the sake of making your reader curious because the reader will know they’re being manipulated.

Trust Violation #3: When we catch the reader up on what the character did since we last saw them.

Example: Brian snuck through the front door, clenching the keys to his dad’s truck. Sometime overnight, Brian had come up with a plan. If Dad was going to insist that drinking and driving was perfectly fine, Brian would take charge of things.

There are absolutely times in storytelling when we want to compress time and leap over what happens in a character’s life. Sleeping, eating, traveling…These are often spots where nothing important and plot-bearing is happening, and we can bypass them altogether. But when the character has seemingly made a choice during a gap of time—a choice that relates to the pursuit of their goal—we should have access to it as it occurs. Plan-making should be born out of active scene. In other words, we should be in the scene whereby the threads of the new decision start to emerge, and we should even see hints of what the character might do next. Or, we should simply and fully know what they plan to do by the time we leave one scene and get ready for the next one. In the example above, unless Dad came home drunk the night before and we saw Brian eyeing Dad’s keys with a sense of hope rising in him—all clues that would logically allow us to predict what Brian might do next—then we feel like he’s made a decision without us. On his own and apart from us. And that separation causes us to not only lose trust in the character, but also the writer. As basic as it sounds, a feeling emerges like the character has been off doing important things without us, and we’re a bit bummed to have been left out. This type of writing makes your reader stop and ask, “Wait, what?” because the character’s decision has been made off-the-page without enough clues to feel logical or predictable.

One way you can tell when this sort of thing happens is that there hasn’t been time for the character (or the reader) to weigh the cost of the choice the character is ultimately going to make. We don’t know what Brian is knowingly losing in taking his dad’s truck, the risks specific to his character, or what’s at stake that he’s choosing to risk in pursuit of this goal. We don’t get the benefit of being with him as he makes the decision itself. There’s a feeling like it’s happening too fast and somewhat suddenly, and that makes us doubt Brian—the character we want to feel like represents us.

Bottom line: When your character makes a crucial decision toward their goal, make sure that it’s made (even partially via context clues) during active scene so that your reader feels like the character’s ally in every moment of the story.

What types of craft choices do you experience as a reader that break your trust? Do you struggle with these types of choices as a way of drawing out or generating tension? What other ways do you find help maintain that writer-character-reader trust?

Happy writing!
Marissa