I’m lying in my chu, sick again from the unending parade of bugs that have decided to take root in my system this year. I swear, American stomach flu and common cold have nothing on the Iraqi versions. I feel like I’ve been sick every other week this entire year. But I’ll get better and move on, just like always.
But I’m lying here, and I’m staring at a copy of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight. I’ve been dying to get home to my collection on Anne’s books and reread the series. It’s been a favorite of mine since I discovered Moreta’s Ride and was utterly and completely confused as to what it meant for a dragon queen to clutch. Then I discovered Dragonflight and my confusion was answered with a burning need to read everything that Ms. McCaffrey ever wrote about Pern. Unfortunately, the second book in her series, Dragonquest, was misplaced on the library shelves and I refused to read on until I could read the series in sequence. This was before I had a car and before the days of Amazon when I could simply order the next book. I still remember my joy – yes joy – when I found it on the shelf in the wrong place, with the A’s instead of the M’s and was able to read the next story.

 

I’m looking at the cover of the book and remembering all those fond hours as a child disappearing into the world of Pern and wishing beyond wish that I could have a dragon. Cut me some slack, I was a lonely kid.

 

But now, it’s been years since I reread the story and I certainly haven’t reread it since I became a writer. I’d the last book in the series I loved was the MasterHarper of Pern. So it’s been awhile since I traveled there and lost myself in the world. I’m looking at the cover and wondering, will the lore still pull me in? Will the book still speak to me as it did over my middle grade years and into adult hood? Or will my writer’s eye see things that I never noticed before, ruining the world I’ve loved for as long as I can remember?

 

I felt the same trepidation when I decided to reread Laura Kinsale’s series. I loved her books as a young woman but was nervous that they might not hold the same thrall they had when I was younger. I worried that the myth and the ability to get lost in the story might have been lost to me as I started looking at the words instead of as the story.

 

It’s the mark of a great writer to be able to pull a writer into the story and not let them go. I read Laura Kinsale’s Seize the Fire and the story pulled me in so hard, I skipped out of work to finish it. I cared so deeply for the characters, I wept at the end. That is the mark of a great writer. Not just words on pages, but words that create a story and pull the reader into the world.

 

I’ve cracked open the first page of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight and was immediately seized by the opening sentence. “Lessa woke, cold.” Her world immediately pulled me in, dragging me across the skies to my favorite haunt as a child. It’s the goal we should all strive for as authors, to create a world, whatever world we chose to write in, and pull our readers in. We have to make them care about the characters.

 

Kate Duffy told me once that my characters were too real, that they weren’t doing anything better than a real person might and readers read to escape. I did a lot of soul searching after she was good enough to take the time to make those comments to me, over the phone. She impacted me because she told me the characters felt real, just not better than us.

 

How do you pull your reader into your world? How do you make them care about the characters so much that they have to turn the page and see what happens next?
When you figure that out, let me know. I’ll be on Pern for a while.