I had a tummy bug recently and spent two days in bed -- plenty of time in which to devour Kate Atkinson's new Jackson Brodie novel, Started Early, Took My Dog in a single sitting.
It is a highly enjoyable, sympathetic read and made me feel a whole lot better -- about myself, amongst other things. Thinking about it now, this was partly because she paid me the compliment of assuming I was intelligent and well read. Brodie, her hero, is a bit of a sucker for poetry and the narrative is liberally sprinkled with quotations and references, some of which I recognised, many of which I'm sure escaped me. When I did clock something it made me feel a) nostalgic (if it was something that I liked or had meant something to me once) and b) smug, for being able to identify it at all.
In this way, Atkinson wasn't just telling me a story, she was developing a relationship with me, a kind of nod and wink affair: I know you'll get this, and there's another one coming up in the next chapter which I think you'll like as well. She was treating me as an equal, as someone who is in the know. It's a form of inclusiveness, an unspoken bond. Now that I'm on side like this, it's a fair bet that I'll buy her next book too...
The moral of the story: think of all the different ways -- obvious and not so obvious -- that you can build a relationship with your reader, as it can only be a benefit to both of you.
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