Interactive writing:
Guide your readers
Write Interactively? Don't you need a web page for interaction? No. All effective writing is interaction. Fiction gets a reader to imagine the scene. Informative writing gets a reader to want the information before it is given. Instruction gets a reader to figure out part of an answer before the writing delivers it. Stimulate curiosity. That is one of the standard writing devices to get readers to finish what they begin.
- It is not about what you think. It is about what the reader thinks.
- And about what you want the reader to think.
- You know your target audience.
- Don't just talk to them. Listen to them.
- But they aren't around when you are writing?
- Then you talk for them. Take the role of the reader.
- "Sure I talk to myself. I like to talk to someone who understands me."
- The people in your head. Be everyone you can be
- “SKAM,” the Radical Teen Drama That Unfolds One Post at a Time
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- If you write fiction you are familiar with the people in your head.
- All those fictional characters are in your head before you get them to paper.
- And you are familiar with the effect you want to produce in your readers.
- You write a sentence, and you know what you want your reader to get from that.
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- If you write instructional material, you need to have the learners in your head.
- Note that plural. You don't write for just "the learner." Learners are not all the same.
- Some have good learning skills and know what learning method works for them
- They just need you to show them what they need to be able to do.
- And how to get to the instruction that works for them.
- And how to verify that they have gotten the skills they need.
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- Some need help in finding what learning method works for them.
- Others need to be pushed away from the classroom model,
- Where being able to answer questions is the only skill you need.
- Some get details immediately, but need to be helped to grasp the big picture.
- Some get the big picture and can talk about it as if they know all about it.
- But they don't remember the details.
- The Secret of the Instruction Manual
How can I guide the reader's thinking?
- You just saw a simple and common way to guide the reader's thinking.
- Did you notice it? Ask a question.
- The readers will think of their answers.
- That may get them part way toward knowing what you want them to know.
- Be sure to follow that information with some way to work out an answer.
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- The question arouses curiosity, a major motivator for learning.
- Another curiosity teaser is illustrated above by the people in your head.
- I prepped you on that one, just mentioned it casually and left it.
- You probably noticed it and saw that it referred to imaginary characters in fiction.
- But in the back of your mind you probably wondered about what else it could mean.
- Could it also apply readers of your writings?
- -
- I'll bet you noticed a third method. Bold: emphasis.
- In fact, you probably noticed items in bold before you read anything else.
- And you will notice them again if you review the article.
- Achieving Emphasis in Writing
- How to Use Emphasis in Writing
Interaction starts with the title
- Anyone who sees the title interacts with it: they read it or skip it.
- So you write the title to sell it to your reader.
- The first step in selling is: Think about what attracts readers.
- And not just any reader, but the readers you want to read what you are writing.
- The title of this article told you it was aimed at writers.
- It also mentioned a concept that may not be familiar to all writers.
- The concept is familiar to all successful fiction writers.
- But maybe not to writers of textbooks and other nonfiction.
- Maybe not to educators or people writing for educational
- If you are a writer, wondering what interactive writing is, you may want to find out.
- how to guide the reader's thinking (Google search)
- YOUR GUIDE TO ENGAGING STUDENTS AS THINKING READERS
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