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With your written words alone, you can evoke many emotions in your readers. You can mystify, fascinate, dazzle, awe, uplift, sadden, and many more. But strive not to confuse.

Consequences

Confused readers might, for a short time, give you the benefit of the doubt. Your readers might slog on a bit longer, trusting you to straighten things out, enlighten, explain.

If the confusion doesn’t get resolved soon, your trusting readers will lose trust and blame you, not themselves, for the confusion. It’s your fault for not being clear, for writing poorly. Hard to win readers back after that.

Story Level

To prevent reader confusion, let’s start with the big picture. You’ve finished your manuscript, whether short story, novella, or novel. In your mind, picture the entirety of it.

• Does it make sense?
• Does it satisfy in some way?
• Could your target readers pick out the themes?
• Is your main character vivid and engaging?
• Could your readers describe the protagonist’s problem, and how that problem got resolved?

If not, perhaps you should do another draft.

Scene Level

Next, look at the story scene by scene. For every one, ask a few questions.

• Have you provided enough description for each important person, place, and object?
• From these descriptions, can your readers form a good mental picture?
• Do your characters stay in-character? That is, do their words, thoughts, and actions make sense in the circumstances, and are they consistent with previously established motivations? If not, have you provided a reasonable explanation for the change in the characters’ behavior?
• Do your characters choose the easiest or shortest path to achieving their goals? If not, have you provided a convincing explanation why your character takes the more difficult or longer route?

If some answers are ‘no,’ consider editing those scenes.

Sentence Level

Now you must go sentence by sentence. Sorry, but to prevent reader confusion, you must. For this, I urge you to read this post by author and writing coach Kathy Steinemann.

In her post, Ms. Steinemann lists several punctuation and word phrasing errors that can confuse readers. Her post includes examples of each along with ways to correct them.

One section deals with word order, and the examples of poor word order remind me of the old Groucho Marx joke—“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas, I’ll never know.”

Overall

The best technique for preventing reader confusion lies outside all the levels I’ve discussed. Ms. Steinemann mentions this technique in her post as two things, but I’ll combine them since they’re related: Let your manuscript rest until you can edit it with fresh eyes.

In other words, leave the story unread for a time while you work on other things. How long should it rest? The longer you wait, the better your editing will be, but also the longer the reading public must wait for its publication. You pick the best compromise there.

Exceptions

No writing rule stands unmarred by exceptions. Are there times when you may want to confuse readers? Yes.

You can get away with confusing them for a time, but only if you resolve their confusion with an ‘ah-ha!’ or a ‘ha-ha!’ You might present a confusing situation such that both character and reader get confused, as in a mystery, then solve the mystery for both character and reader. Ah-ha! Or you can make a joke as in the Groucho Marx example. Ha-ha!

Conclusion

In general, you’re not aiming for confused readers. If they can’t figure out what you mean, they won’t read the rest of the story, or any others written by you. They might tell their friends not to, as well. If this post confused you, then the only one to blame is—

Poseidon’s Scribe

Two separate legal battles, over two different creative works, may prove instructive to the writers among you.

Recently, I blogged about the Julie and Julia Formula, where you transform a passion of yours into literary success. A workable formula, true, but you must take care to avoid the legal peril of copyright violation.

Copyright

In concept, copyright strikes a duration-specified balance between respecting the right of a creator to profit from creative work without competition, and providing the public unrestricted access to all ideas. Our nation’s founding fathers set that compromise at 14 years. Over time, Congress lengthened it to either 95 years after publication or 70 years after the author’s death, whichever comes first.

Mickey

Two recent events brought copyright into the news. I’ll start with Mickey Mouse. As of January 1, the early depictions of Walt Disney’s iconic cartoon rodent entered the public domain. You’re free to write or draw your own Mickey Mouse story and sell it. The Disney legal team won’t bury you in cease-and-desist orders if you do.

That lifting of a restriction arrived far too late for Dan O’Neill, who, in 1971, attempted to profit from his comic book, “Air Pirates Funnies,” which featured the famous mouse. Though Mickey is just a mouse, the Disney lawyers must have seemed to O’Neill like some larger and more voracious animal.

Tolkien

The other recent event concerns JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Tolkien got his book published in 1955, so it’s still under copyright. A writer going by the name Polychron published an unauthorized sequel in 2022. An army soon attacked. Not an army of Orcs, but, worse, an army of lawyers hired by the Tolkien family heirs.

Temptation

What might we learn from these two cases? The obvious lesson—don’t infringe on someone else’s copyright.

Easy to say, but that lesson doesn’t say it all. Often, we take up writing because we’ve fallen in love with another author’s work. We love that author’s world and characters. We immerse ourselves in the book. We imagine other adventures for those characters. Ideas for sequels and prequels spring to mind.

We write a new story out of love, enjoying every minute of the project. We adore the finished product. What’s the harm, we think, of making a few bucks? The character’s original creator is dead, the family is wealthy, and our work is a tribute, after all, not some crass satire.

The Other Side

To see the harm, picture the matter from the other side. No matter what you think of the 95/70 years rule, it’s the current law. Imagine you dreamed up a memorable character, one the world fell in love with. Your book became a best-seller and the resulting movie a blockbuster. You’ve made a well-deserved fortune and you’ll die knowing your heirs will live in financial comfort.

Along comes some upstart, a writer who couldn’t be bothered to create an original character in an original world. This thief steals your work, your intellectual property, and seeks a profit from it. (Here, I’m not referring to anyone in particular, just to a hypothetical copyright violator.) In such a case, you’d hope the lawyers fight for the rights of your heirs.

Takeaway

Rather than stealing another author’s character, be creative. Turn that love of another’s work into something different. Honor your favorite author by slanting your book down a unique path.

Or, if you must use someone else’s ideas, pick those old enough to have advanced to the public domain. If you go that direction, don’t just add zombies—I’m begging you. The ‘classics plus zombies’ mashup is cliched. If any readers harbored doubts about your originality in copying an idea freshly emerged into the public domain, you’ll only confirm a reputation as an unimaginative hack by inserting zombies.

Go write a story involving the early Mickey Mouse if you wish. But, however strong the temptation, do not copy the ideas of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

A year ago, you got excited about the publication of Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. Then you learned the book wasn’t available in your favorite format, the ebook. Disappointed, you kept checking, as days became weeks became months.

Good news! Your patient wait is over. You may now purchase the ebook version. It’s available from the publisher, for the Amazon Kindle, and soon from other booksellers. I’m sorry it’s taken so long.

Those of you who prefer to read on electronic devices can now enjoy this anthology of over a dozen stories, all crafted by today’s authors. These tales sparkle with the lure of distant travel, the wonder of scientific discovery, and the drama of high adventure that typify Verne’s novels. With each story, you’ll see an accompanying illustration selected from original drawings in Verne’s works.

Two appendices close out the book. The first provides the source of each illustration. The second gives a complete list of all JV’s published works, most now available in English.

To reiterate, you may now purchase Extraordinary Visions in ebook format here and here. I’m confident you’ll delight in reading this anthology, co-edited by Reverend Matthew T. Hardesty and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

When I write, I wear six hats. Well, not at the same time, and not literally. I recommend you do, too. Some of the hats may not fit well, at first, but you’ll come to like them all.

I’m talking about the Six Thinking Hats of Dr. Edward de Bono, popularized by his 1985 book of the same name. Author Mark Gilroy applied the 6 hats idea to writing in this fun and instructive blog post, and I’ll add my own spin on his ideas here.

When you wear any particular one of the colored hats, you’re adopting a specific persona, a mindset that drives your thoughts. They are as follows:

• Green is for new ideas, creativity, and innovation.
• Blue is for big picture thinking, management, and organization.
• Yellow is for positive thinking, optimism, and hope.
• Black is for negative thinking, pessimism, and skepticism.
• White is for non-judgmental information-gathering.
• Red is for feelings, emotions, and instinct.

The theory is that only by wearing each of the hats at different times is a complete, effective solution achieved.

For a writer of fictional stories, here’s a way to think of each hat:

• Green: story concepts, ideas for characters and settings
• Blue: outlining, organizing your thoughts, planning your marketing campaign
• Yellow: perseverance, overcoming disillusionment or loss of interest
• Black: subsequent drafts, editing, deleting, revising
• White: story research, brainstorming plot options
• Red: first draft, character motivation, building tension

To look at this in a different way, let’s consider different stages or activities involved in writing a story, and which hats you’d wear at each stage. I’ve listed several hats at each stage in a specific order. Since writers work alone, or collaborate with one or a few others, I don’t consider it necessary to follow Dr. de Bono’s strict methods, which are intended for business teams.

As I mentioned earlier, not all the hats will feel comfortable to you. That is, some mindsets may be difficult for you to think in. Some writers don’t plan well or do outlines, so the blue hat may pinch a bit. Others get partway through writing and lose interest or get depressed about how poor they write, and they’ll dislike the yellow hat’s style.

Whichever hat is difficult for you, that’s the one you need most. That’s the one that will help you become a well-rounded writer.

Here you go—six (figurative) hats, all in great condition. Wear them well. With any luck, you’ll write better and look at least as dapper as—

Poseidon’s Scribe