Chapter 15: Hail Mary
I: Faith
“You don’t have to give your reader the ending you think they want. Not at all. You only have to be sure they get to the ending. Then, you end your story however you wish.”
I was interrogating Zane about writing as we sat in a cafe in the old city.
“And to get them there, there is a misconception. Suspense, of course. But many writers believe what works is to leave the reader not knowing what is going to happen next. And this works, of course. But what works much better is when your reader believes they do know what will happen next. They will read more eagerly when they are trying to confirm their own theory than they will when they are trying to solve the mystery of what happens next. Appeal to the vanity of the reader.”
“How did you figure this out? Writing?”
“Reading,” he answered.