Author's Notes on: Basics of Controlling a Reader's Head-Voice
A look at how to control your sentences so you can control how your readers read
In writing, what you say and how you say it matters.
(Shocking, I’m sure.)
If it sounds l like a no-brainer, that’s because it is — I know I’m not breaking any new ground with that sentiment. Still, it’s something I’d like to call attention to as a part of this article, specifically a small but notable portion of the how-you-say-it part: sentence and paragraph structure.
Controlling the Sentence
When you write, you take control over a reader’s head-voice. That means that readers put pauses and emphases where you designate them to.
Don’t believe me?
Consider this sentence: it’s soft and sweet; the way it lilts upon the brain is like a melody.
THESE SENTENCES ARE ANGRY! THESE SENTENCES ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS!
This. Sentence. Is. Hard. To. Read. Because. Your. Brain. Stops. At. Every. Period. This interaction. It comes off. As stilted.
And this sentence alone takes an hour and a half to say, stretching the boundaries of its linguistic limitations, purposefully, in order to demonstrate a point, and, just when you think it might be over, it continues into a related idea with proper enough grammatical structure that you can’t fault it, and yet your brain is beginning to struggle and seek an end that it’s starting to worry will never come — but, as all sentences must, this one does eventually draw to its close.
Fun, right?
And it’s easier than you think; for the most part, how readers actually read your work comes down to three main factors: punctuation, length, and style.
Punctuation
Think about things like periods, commas, dashes, parentheses, etc. Your brain interprets these things the same way on paper that it does in speech, and as a writer, you can use this to your advantage. There are lots of ways to use punctuation, but today we’ll be focusing primarily on periods and commas.
Periods are full stops. Anywhere that you type a period, your reader’s brain will take notice and put a mental pause there. That’s why the sentence with periods after every word is hard to read — it’s like a car stopping and going every few seconds.
If you want an interaction to come off as stilted, or a sentence to feel like it was tacked on at the end, this is one way to do that! You can also use it for emphasis the same way you’d do vocally.
Some of this is a stylistic choice in how you want to depict the sentence. Consider the difference between these:
[Character A] turns quickly on a heel, snapping, “I already TOLD you — I don’t want to be here!”
[Character A] turns quickly on a heel, snapping, “I already TOLD you — I. Don’t. Want. To. Be. Here.”
Same idea, same italics, same capitals, but one forces the brain to stress each of the words in the back half of the sentence. It’s up to you whether this fits your vision of the scene/line delivery better, or if the strain takes away from it.
If you want something that the character shouts on their way out the door, you might prefer the first version. It still conveys the same feeling, and the lack of periods makes it easier to say quickly than the second sentence. It flows better with the scene for the character to say this, then storm out.
If you wanted this to be a point where [Character A] is drawn back into an argument or stands their ground, though, you might prefer the second iteration for its pauses. Putting emphasis on each of the words means it feels like it takes the character longer to say. They have to stand there for a second to get it all out before whatever they’re going to do next.
Commas, meanwhile, are like pauses or breaths. They’re softer than periods in terms of halting your reader’s brain. You can — and should — use them to connect ideas and alleviate the full stop of periods when necessary.
Short, stilted sentences have their place, but too many of them in succession can make it hard to read, and it can sound very basic. In the same vein, trying to connect too many sentences with commas won’t sound right either. Depending on the sentence, it could be completely correct grammatically, but just come off weird in a reader’s brain because of the amount of commas (or lack thereof).
Consider the difference between these examples:
I stopped. Turned. I stared into the eyes of the beast.
I stopped, turned. Stared into the eyes of the beast.
I stopped and turned, staring into the eyes of the beast.
I stopped, turned, stared into the eyes of the beast.
Which one is best? Well, there’s not really a concrete answer to that. Personally, the fourth is my least favorite of the bunch, but none of these sentences are inherently wrong and could all work well depending on what their purpose is and the context of the sentences around them.
Building tension? Use the sentences that stretch the moment out! Make the reader’s brain compute the slow agony of the stop. The turn. Meeting eyes with whatever creature has pursued the character.
Paying off tension? Consider using commas so the ideas will flow together succinctly.
This is also relevant for pauses in dialogue.
“This is a bad idea,” he said.
“This,” he said, “is a bad idea.”
Neither of these is objectively better, but depending on the context of the conversation and what exactly he’s talking about, breaking things up mid-sentence may just work better for how the line is delivered and how you want the reader to perceive his words.
As mentioned, there are other forms of punctuation like dashes, parentheses, etc. that can be used for other purposes. Parentheses are generally used for asides (like elaborating more on an idea the sentence touched on, but in theory they could be taken out and the sentence wouldn’t change. Think of them as comments or notes tacked onto a sentence). Dashes are more like commas — they connect ideas together, but have a sense of being a longer “breath” than a comma.
However, I won’t be getting into those too deeply today because we still have lots to cover.
Length
Sentence length is how you control speed and tension.
The rule of thumb tends to be that clusters of short sentences draw a moment out, while long sentences scrunch a lot of things into a single moment.
As you may have already guessed, this is thanks to that dynamic between periods and commas — periods make your brain stop, so the moment seems longer if there are more of them. Commas connect ideas together, so things feel like they happen quicker.
However, that isn’t the end all be all of the situation.
You can also build tension with description, burning an image into the reader’s brain just as much as it’s burned into the character’s. Short sentences can also be used for impact or punctuation of a series of quick events.
Description is also an important factor in controlling a reader’s perception of time because they only really see what you describe. Lots of description makes a scene slower, or creates a moment of crystal clarity amidst chaos. Little to no description instead gives the impression of things happening in a blur, too fast to make out anything important.
The idea with using length to control a reader’s perception of time and tension isn’t just about using short or long sentences.
In general, there’s a lot of merit to mixing up the lengths and configurations of your sentences (short, medium, long) to keep the reader’s brain engaged and allow the writing to flow. This also holds true specifically for fast and slow scenes — you’ll want to have primarily the type of sentence applicable to the speed you’re conveying, but if your scene is all fast sentences or all slow ones, it isn’t going to feel as dynamic or interesting to read.
Style
The final category is a bit of a catchall term, and really I could talk about a lot of things here. Right now, I’m only going to be covering a few components of text style.
Italics and bold are the main things that made style jump to this list, but there are a few others worth noting too.
Italics is often used to whisper, but can also generally indicate stress on a word, sometimes aggressive stress but not always. It can be used to indicate sarcasm, a playful tone, a character’s thoughts, and many other things.
Bolding text tends to be seen as aggressive or commanding, and is often used for shouting or making a point. Like italics, it is a mark of emphasis, but tends to not be as versatile in its use because of its associations to anger. It’s not completely confined to being a signifier of that, but it is a big part of its usage.
CAPITALIZING IS OFTEN USED FOR YELLING, EMPHASIS, OR AN INDICATION OF IMPORTANCE.
You can also use different fonts if that fits what you need.
YOU can use ALL of these THINGS in your WRITING but be warned that the BEST usage of them is as necessary AND/OR sparingly, BECAUSE something LIKE this would BE A NIGHTMARE to read.
Save your emphasis for when you really want to emphasize something, and it’ll hit that much harder than if every other word was bolded.
Controlling the Paragraph
Believe it or not, the fundamentals of controlling the paragraph are the same as the sentence, just on a larger scale.
Punctuation — On a paragraph scale, your punctuation comes from a combination of the types of sentences in your paragraphs, and paragraph breaks. Short sentences function like periods and long ones function more like commas — and the entire sequence of paragraphs is its own series of connected thoughts and ideas.
Short sentences have the impact of a full stop, just like periods do. Obviously you don’t use them exactly like periods (ie, they don’t punctuate every paragraph or sentence), but the idea is still the same.
Medium and long sentences serve to flow ideas like commas do, but need to be broken up by “full-stop” short sentences every now and then to keep the consistency of the work dynamic and easy to read.Length — While with sentences shorter sentences made the moment feel longer and vise versa, paragraph and their lengths tend to be directly proportional to the perceived length of the moment. A paragraph the size of my arm is going to feel like a long moment because I spend so long reading it. A one-word paragraph, meanwhile, is instantaneous.
Variety in your paragraph lengths is just as important as variety in your sentence lengths to making your writing feel dynamic and readable.Style — On a paragraph scale, this refers to stylistic elements like centering something, splitting up words from the rest of the sentence, having several one-word sentences one after another, etc. All of these things are markers of emphasis that can be used in different ways and, as you may have noticed, overlap with other elements in controlling the paragraph.
So, controlling the paragraph is as easy as applying the skills and knowledge of controlling your sentences, just on a larger scale!
Controlling your sentence allows you to have the tools to determine where and how to portray fast scenes, slow scenes, tension, and payoff. And with those tools in mind, you can do the same with controlling your paragraphs, scenes, chapters, and even whole books.
Variety is dynamic, and dynamic is great for creating something people love and want to read.
I hope this article has helped give a sense of the mechanisms at your disposal to control how your reader perceives what’s going on in the book. Anything to add? Anything I missed? Feel free to comment below your thoughts!