Connection by Nancy L. Eady

 My daughter first came to live with us when she was three years and one month old. We went from childless couple to parents with one month’s notice. Since the first month after she was with us was December, the transition was even more hectic. It’s not every new father who rushes down to Toys R’ Us because the last shipload of swing sets pre-Christmas arrived at the store at midnight unexpectedly. The swing set was one of only three things she said she wanted for Christmas, and the hardest.  

In the midst of all of that, I can still remember how we would drive places with her in her child seat in the back and she would suddenly sing out, “I saw something!” The standard reply was “What did you see?” The answer was usually something undifferentiated like “A tree!” Or maybe it only sounded like that because, y’all, speaking three-year-old is NOT easy. She must have thought we were the dumbest people on earth the first month she lived with us because every time she spoke we’d stare at her blankly and then ask her to say whatever it was again. Looking back, though, I realize the “I-saw-something” game was one way she was trying to connect with us. 

As authors, our goal is to connect with our readers. One way to do this is to use short descriptions of the small items we (or our characters) collect around us. If your character doesn’t have a small collection of detritus that surrounds their personal space, then that says something about them too. My personal assumption would be “neat freak,” but since I am chronically unorganized, that is judgmental on my part. 

For example, my chest of drawers in the bedroom has a few objects on it. If I was writing about a character and tossed out something about her “moving the miniature enameled vases she bought at the antique store on her and her husband’s last visit with her in-laws before they died” while dusting, haven’t I given my reader something to connect to? Or perhaps she could be about to move, coping with keeping a house show-ready, cooking dinner and thinking about how empty the kitchen counters look since the realtor forced her to pack away her glass collection of red, blue and yellow roosters. Again, I hope, connection. What about a man who opens the spare room closet to find something for his wife, discovering one of the collars for a dog he loved that died years earlier? He fingers the faded red collar, then gently lays it aside on a sewing table to start pulling out boxes. I think I like him most of all three. 

Now, my reactions to the above descriptions are generally positive because I have positive connections with the subject matter. I loved my in-laws, am fond of my rooster collection and recently found an old collar one of my dogs who died used. They could equally spark negative feelings for a person who has negative connections with the subject matter, such as having a toxic relationship with their in-laws, being virulently anti-clutter and anti-collections, or loathing dogs. The descriptions could also create confusion if the emotion involved and the character’s actions are diametrically opposed, such as a description involving a positive emotion being applied to a serial killer. The point of the description, though, is still met because the reader’s connection to it elicits a reaction which is what I, as the writer, am hoping to achieve. 

What are the techniques you use in your writing to connect with your readers?