A Writing Tip to Help your Readers “Can’t Even”

I don’t know about you, but this is my perpetual state of existence. Or at least, this is what I strive for when I’m reading.

I’m a huge book nerd but it’s the rare book that makes me forget how to function. Where I sit there lost in the world of the story. Where my mind casts back to those upheaval of emotions. Where I feel downright exhausted by the literary journey I’ve just taken. Where I want to immediately devour another. book that makes me feel the same way.

Here’s my current list of books where I can’t even:

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger, The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin.

This is not to overlook the books that keep me in their clutches from cover to cover or the books I think about with a smile for the pleasure of reading. But there is something wholly wonderful and completely indescribable about the books that steal you away without a glance back, depositing you at the end broken and whimpering.

And I feel this way when I’m writing. There’s nothing quite like the high of being swept up in a particularly strong swell of writing, where you’re unaware of the hours passing, where the only thing that matters is the words that are flowing from your fingertips.

So your goal today is to be the writer in this meme. Make a list of all the books and authors and poets and artists who make you feel like you can’t even. Describe why. Be as detailed you can about something that feels ephemeral.

Are there specific lines? Which characters jump off the page? In what specific scenes? Are there specific images? Did the author connect you with emotions from childhood or a specific memory?

Try to replicate that in your writing. If you keep a close eye on the writers you admire for their ability to transport you outside yourself, you’re essentially using their text as a crash course on craft. Then you’re halfway there to being the one that makes your readers can’t even.