THE GOLD COINS WRITING TECHNIQUE

Email from John Matthew Fox to Larry Holden

Don Fry was an author with a problem.

He was frustrated that his readers would ofteii ditch his book or article right in the middle.

Readers would write to him, complaining about what he'd written, and it was obvious they'd never made it to the end!

So, he came up with a strategy to solve this problem. He called it the "Gold Coins" writing technique.

Imagine you were walking in a forest and found a gold coin. You'd be ecstatic. And if you saw another one up ahead, you'd run to that next one.

And the next one.

And the next one.

Until you couldn't find any more.

Basically, you'd keep going as long as you kept finding gold coins.

Writing is a lot like a chain of gold coins on a forest floor. As long as you're rewarding the reader periodically, they'll have the energy to keep reading.

Now Don Fry used this technique in nonfiction, but I think it works equally well for fiction. The question is: What is a gold coin in a story?

Well, there are plot coins:

•         A surprise or a twist

•         Introduction of a powerful object

•         Cliffhanger

There are also character coins:

•          A cameo by a character from earlier in the book or series

•          An introduction of a new character who is funny or weird

•         The discovery of new information about one of your characters Sometimes a gold coin can be small:

•          A beautiful sentence

•         A perfect detail

•          A powerful quote or line of dialogue

As a writer, your goal should be to deliver these jolts of pleasure, these dopamine hits, these shiny gold coins, to the reader.

If you deliver enough of them, they'll keep reading all the way to the end.

But there are three pitfalls to avoid.

1.  Overloading

Watch out-if you overload your book with gold coins, it can backfire and make your book feel like: a soap opera a cheesy book a book with pacing that's too fast

2.  Uneven Gold Coins

Writers have a tendency to give a ton of gold coins at the beginning of a story, and a ton at the end, but miss the middle.

That's a big mistake. Big. HUGE! (hat tip to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman).

Read your book looking for an even disbursement of gold coins. If you've read a chapter with only one or zero, then you might need to throw a handful (or throw a largesse - such a fun word that I never get to use because I don't write medieval epics with generous kings).

3.  Missing the Mark

Each audience values different things for gold coins. If you're writing a Romance, a gold coin is:

•         a touch of the hand

•         An awkward kiss

•          A first date

These advance the storyline, and they deliver the romantic currency to the reader (which is what readers are there for).

Romance readers are less likely to appreciate the gold coins of:

•         Worldbuilding

•         An exquisite paragraph-long description of a tree

Know your audience well enough to know what they would consider a gold coin.

John Matthew Fox