SABRIYA Writing Journal 9 - Capturing and Engaging Your Reader

In September and October (2025), I made several presentations to writing conferences in Florida, West Virginia, Michigan and on-line on How to Capture and Engage your Audience (or Readers). There were seven basic methods I outlined in the presentation. You can view and download the PDF of that talk HERE. 

Staying within that theme, I have finally finished Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, but I am far from finished with it, which this post attempts to further along. The 1874 novel is reportedly 136,000 words and should, I have read, take only 6-7 hours to read (377 wpm). The 136,000, however, does not include the hundreds of footnotes, or my putting the book down to look up Hardy's many literary and cultural references, nor does it count the times I had to re-read sentences and paragraphs to get the gist of 150-year-old, 19th-century language to understand. Thus, it took me the most of six days. Add to that my wife's requirement that I read aloud to her the final two chapters, since we had both screened the 1967 and 2015 movies (there are five movies and multiple stage plays based on the novel).

While Madding Crowd was enjoyable for me, I suspect it was for reasons that differed from other's. For me, it was research that involved a lot of highlighting and note-taking. I wanted to be a better writer, and over the last six months, in preparation to dig into the Sabriya manuscript, Madding Crowd ended up being the most noteworthy of the six novels I read. Below, I share what I have learned, or been reminded of, from Madding Crowd. 

I had purchased and extensively highlighted the Penguin Classics paperback edition (first published 2000, reprinted 2003) of Madding Crowd. The novel was so popular, even in Hardy's day, that it was released in various volumes and series, and revised by Hardy (in 1895, and 1901) and others, and found readers not only in England, but the U.S.  My copy includes an editor's preface, a chronology of Hardy's life, biographical notes, an introduction, and many, many footnotes comparing various editions to one another and explaining references to Biblical and other classical texts that Hardy mentions in the story. There is also a glossary so modern readers can better connect with the culture of Wessex, England in the late 19th century. 

Because of my fascination with the history of Western Civilization, I suppose, the book had extra appeal. But as a writer, setting off on his 4th novel, and 9th book, after hundreds of documentary films and videos and as many screenplays on which I've consulted or written, I knew I still had much to learn.

Yet, I am still haunted, even amidst the notes below. Sabriya is supposed to be a contemporary action-thriller, and Madding Crowd is a historical romance. Thus, what I think I may have learned may not be learning enough, or learning in the wrong direction. 

Nonetheless:

• BE THE OMNISCIENT WRITER: Write as the omniscient writer (not omniscient God). "Little did he know that..." and "Bathsheba, however, had other ideas..."

• CHARACTER POV. Stick to a single character's POV in a scene, with occasional flourishes as the omniscient writer, perhaps at the end of the scene. Hardy doesn't do this, and when he shifts POV, it always takes me out of the story to get into another character's head.

• USE SCENE-SEQUENCE. Write paragraphs in the Scene-Sequel paradigm to employ an emotional-rational roller coaster at the paragraph level.

• SCENE DESCRIPTIONS. Start scenes with a detailed description of the setting, including weather, harvest, animals, landscape, season, birds, prey, and flowers in such a way as to parallel the coming action, attitudes, or foreshadow the tragedy afoot.

• PLOT AHEAD-OF-TIME PLOT REVERSALS. Plot regular hard reversals of the plot (turning points). Do not neglect (that is, consider using) asymmetrical reversals within the protagonist or antagonist's mind apart from the physical plot. That is, a reversal that does not need to be physical, it can be only psychological. E.g. "...considering the rum creatures we women are." (Liddy to Bathsheba) ["Rum" in the feminine old British context means "strange" or "odd."]

• APHORISM FACTORY: Aphorisms are Hardy's superpower. Try for at least one aphorism per page (omniscient writer POV), a pithy saying of truth that reverses the use of nouns and verbs.  E.g.  "The passion now startled him less even when it tortured him more." and "We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colours they are known by." And, "He was drenched, weary, and sad, but not so sad as drenched and weary, for he was cheered by a sense of success in a good cause." (Oak after covering the ricks before a wind storm.)

• WRITE IRONIC: ...descriptions of all characters (make them round, not flat), e.g. "Her emblazoned fault was to be too pronounced in her objections, and not sufficiently overt in her likings." [Actually, that's an aphorism; the irony comes in the detail of what that aphorism summarizes. 

• UNREQUITED ROMANCES: Build in multiple fierce but unrequited romances (love triangles or quadrangles). One may be noble and true (Oak), one persistent and mad (Boldwood), one manipulative and lustful (Troy). 

• HOUSE OF CARDS: The relationships between key characters must be interdependent like a house of cards. This creates tension; if one fails to create suspense, the others fail to be necessary. (hey, that's an aphorism.) 

• REASON WITH GAPS: Make speeches and character motivations rational, but also (omnisciently) point out gaps in reasoning. 

• WOMAN'S INDECISION: Much of Hardy's drama in Madding Crowd centers on a woman's indecision (due to a sense of misplaced and exaggerated obligation or guilt) and a man's deceitfulness (due to achieving the goal at all costs, even to oneself). This creates massive psychological upheaval of values and thus poor decisions and actions that result in natural consequences.) Bathsheba to Liddy: "I feel wretched at one time, and buoyant at another." Women (typically or in general) tend to be global thinkers, and are affected by their significant monthly hormonal cycle. This "indecision" (due to conflicting priorities) is one reason why romance novels, with women as protagonists, are best sellers, and where the plot can be summarized as "I don't know what to do." Women buy such novels because they easily identify with the characters and their predicaments.

• LET NATURE REVERSE: Don't neglect reversals induced by nature (Fire, Floods, Storms, Earthquakes). Always foreshadow such reversals and describe how nature (animal instincts) predicts them. Such are never elements of "deus ex machina." Such can be handled as secrets that only nature knows, e.g. foreshadowed by the omniscient writer.  As in all turning points and reversals, draw them out, detail, chronology, give them an inevitability, never let the reader imagine the reversal "just happened."  (e.g., the long queue of the windstorm and thatching of the wheat and barley ricks.

• TAKE TIME TO REVERSE. Never describe a turning point quickly. Dwell on the detail, stretch it out, make it essential. One of my favorites is in Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger , when a smart bomb is dropped on a drug cartel meeting in Colombia. Clancy takes pages to describe the setup and the seconds it takes for the bomb to be targeted, launched, armed, dropped, and explode. 

• NATURE'S OMNISCIENCE: Let Nature describe God's or Satan's (the supernatural) attitude about the scene. e.g. Fanny's grave, (ennobled by Troy as an act of penance) is destroyed by rainwater from a gargoyle's mouth.

• INTEGRITY RISES FROM ASHES: In the midst of moral failure, let integrity arise, although too little too late. e.g. Bathsheba honors Fanny's grave, Boldwood negotiates with Troy for Troy to marry Bathsheba, Bathsheba runs after Oak after dismissing him (multiple times), Boldwood turns himself into the gaol (jail), Oak marries Bathsheba on the last page...but why not even a kiss?) 

• INDEFINITE NOUNS: Use omniscient observer pronouns as a unique reference with different emotional connotations: E.g. in reference to Fanny: dead fellow creature, our sister, member of the flock of Christ, unconscious truant, the body.

• DELAYED REVEAL:  Before revealing the pivotal action, exhaust the inner monologue of dilemma with all possible actions and consequences and leave doubt about what the character will do. Reference the Scene-Sequence model. Consider if it requires a flash forward.

• GAP FILLING: Make the audience work. Try not to reveal a key element of the action, but describe around it. E.g. We never read how Bathsheba opens up Fanny's casket. We read that Bathsheba was determined to look inside, we read she searched for a tool, we read what she saw (although it was censored in one edition), but we never read how she pried open the box. This forces the reader to be intellectually engaged.

• ACTIONS NEED NOT BE ONE OR DECISIVE: ...but two or several and not decisive. In this technique, the earlier actions decided upon are abdicated in the process of taking the action (for reasons announced) until falling upon the final action taken. E.g., Bathsheba decides to go down one road, but retreats, and then goes down a second path, but retreats, and finally goes down a third. 

• FLASH FORWARDS: This is partially covered above. The Flash Forward without preamble can confuse the reader, for it will appear (should appear) out of order. But a subsequent paragraph can explain why. That is, present the action first (when dramatically appropriate) and then FLASHBACK to explain in detail, even recounting the inner monologue that brought the action to fruition.  However, there should be an emphatic surprise at the end of the Flashback to reward the reader for retreating in time. 

• INDIRECT LANGUAGE: This is like subtext, although subtext is usually found in dialogue. Indirect is a technique that mimics real dialogue or description by avoiding the explicit and describing, instead, the emotion, the attitude, or the mood. This can be done with an explicit description of nature or the setting. E.g. a sad situation in a setting of fog and dampness...when Bathsheba discovers her husband, Troy's, infidelity, she is lost emotionally and retreats overnight to a swampy area. Liddy comes to console her, and Hardy describes Liddy's steps across a bog that Bathsheba believes will swallow Liddy up. Although Liddy's feet sink into the spongy bog, it supports her, and she reaches Bathsheba. The blog here perfectly resembles Bathsheba's doubts about her life and refusal to take the steps to recovery.

• NAMES MUST SHOULD SOMETHING. Gabriel Oak is like an oak tree and an archangel. His integrity, strength, and truth are always intact. Bathsheba Everdene is forever beautiful and tempting like King David's Bathsheba who is worth stealing and dying for.  Sgt. Francis (Frank) Troy is a Trojan Horse who is frank to a fault, militantly clever, and manipulative. Farmer William Boldwood, is the "strong-willed warrior" (William) who is bold and persistent to a fault, and mad.  Fanny Robin is free as a bird. Fanny is also a vulgar, old British slang for a loose woman, which Fanny becomes. 

BONUS POINT. The editor's note to Madding Crowd points out that the title is sarcasm. Despite Weatherbury village, where the story takes place, being hundreds of kilometers from the madding crowd of London, its problems are the same and not far away at all.