Immersing into the Authors Craft

At the time, I’d never put my preferences into words before. I was like the stereotypical design client
from hell: I don’t know what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it. *smile*

The answer I eventually figured out captured something about the kinds of stories that stick with me. I
wrote:

“I want books to envelop me in the characters’ world and keep me turning pages. To me, that means
paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and historical romance, with some YA, sci-fi, and fantasy thrown in
for good measure.

Essentially—even though I hadn’t learned the term yet—I was talking about story immersion.

Story immersion is the sense that we’re not just reading words on a page—we’re experiencing the story.
Depending on how our brain works, we might feel and see and imagine the story, or the real world
around us might simply fade into the background.

We’re no longer aware of our existence in that doctor’s office waiting room or carpool line. Others might
ask us questions that we don’t hear. Our promise to go to bed at the chapter break is for naught
because we don’t notice the formatting change for the start of the next chapter. All our focus is on the
story.

Some readers don’t prioritize that aspect of stories when determining what makes them “good” or
“engaging,” and that’s okay. We each prefer what we prefer.

However, what I discovered about myself when answering that Goodreads question is that I love story
immersion. That’s what makes reading fiction worthwhile for me. If the words never disappear from the
page, that’s a sign of a “bad” story to my way of thinking.

But what creates that sense of story immersion? Let’s take a look…
Story Immersion Is Created By…

In some ways, it might be easier to talk about the kinds of things that can prevent readers from
immersing themselves. We’ve probably heard about these before:

unbelievable or unrealistic plot points, character actions, etc. that make readers question the story

slow pacing, lack of tension, too much “telling,” information dumps, backstory, etc. that make readers
bored

distracting editing mistakes, speed bumps in our reading (convoluted sentences, reversed cause-and-
effects, etc.), head-hopping, inconsistent stage direction (“Wait, how many hands does he have?”), story
interruptions, etc.—all can confuse readers, making them back up to reread and reminding readers
they’re reading words on a page

In contrast, the elements that encourage readers to immerse themselves in a story are often just what
we think of as good craft (and which all have multiple posts here on my blog—use the search field in my
side bar to explore):

interesting premise

compelling characters

unpredictable plot

deep point-of-view

primarily “shows” rather than “tells”

settings we can imagine

well-developed worldbuilding

evokes emotions

curiosity, tension, turn-the-page, etc.

As Jefferson Smith found in his “Immerse or Die” project, story-building and story-telling were 75% of
what authors can get wrong—or right. As I mentioned in that post:
“Authors who keep readers immersed in the story can get away with so-so writing, and sometimes they
can even get away with unlikable characters, characters who make stupid choices, lame subplots,
sections with slow pacing, etc. We’ve probably all seen reviews of stories where the reader says “the
writing was laughably bad, but I couldn’t stop reading.””

So to keep readers immersed, we need to build and tell a story. Sounds too simplistic, right?

Our Preferences Can Be Unique

To get back to the question of what creates story immersion, all those elements listed above that
encourage readers to immerse themselves can apply alone or work together in tandem. But our
preferences for what’s most engaging to us can be unique.

Some people will be sucked in most by a plot they try to unravel. Others won’t be able to put the book
down until they see the characters they care about “win.” Still others will feel most strongly about an
emotional experience.

For me, the second part of my Goodreads answer clued me in to my preference: All those genres I listed
as my favorites include worldbuilding.

Worldbuilding is what forces me

David Carpenter’s mornings are usually a time when he immerses himself in his writing.

But the venerable author has just finished a major project and has a little time to chat while sipping
coffee and snacking on a coconut muffin at one of his favourite spots, D’Lish by Tish Cafe.

Carpenter recently completed his fourth novel, which has just been accepted by Coteau Books and
should be released sometime in 2017.

“The novel is called The Gold and it’s about prospecting up north around Yellowknife in the 1930s,” says
Carpenter.
He’s also been busy promoting his latest book, The Education of Augie Merasty (A Residential School
Memoir) by Joseph Auguste Merasty and Carpenter.

The collaborative work, published by The University of Regina Press, recounts Merasty’s life in a
residential school during the 1930s and ’40s and it is up for three awards at the Saskatchewan Book
Awards in Regina taking place April 30.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

Merasty, now in his 80s, is a retired fisherman and trapper but also has had substance abuse issues and
been homeless at various times in his life.

The book took more than 14 years from the time Carpenter was asked if he was interested in helping
Merasty write the book to when it was published in 2015 by the University of Regina Press.

“Sometimes when an assignment comes your way, you kinda know that’s the bullet with your name on
it,” he said of the project. “And my name was on that bullet.

“It is very rare that a First Nations person comes to a white guy and asks for a favour,” says Carpenter.
“Often, they are so politically independent that they’ll say, ‘No thank you Dave, we’ll handle this.’
Suddenly, I had a chance to do something really meaningful. Maybe meaningful to more than just
Augie.”

The book was the longest project Carpenter has been involved in. He would have sporadic
correspondence with Merasty throughout the years and receive snippets of information that he would
have to decipher.

“Augie was two people,” says Carpenter. “He was this courageous, perceptive observer of human life,
but he was also a hopeless alcoholic. So most of the time when I was expecting this promised 200 pages
he always talked about, he disappeared.”

Merasty would go on extended drinking periods and fall off the radar.
“A lot of the drinking came from the fact that he was haunted every day by the horrific experience of
being basically imprisoned in a residential school,” Carpenter said.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

After 2009 Merasty virtually disappeared and Carpenter thought he may have died.

“By 2013 I had been slowly putting together this jigsaw puzzle of tatters of stories, stories without
endings, or two or three versions of the same story. I thought, ‘Dammit I’m going to finish this thing.’”

So he and his wife, artist Honor Keever, went to Stegner House (a retreat for writers) in East End, Sask.,
where he finished the book.

At the end of November 2014, he finished and sent it off to a publisher who promptly rejected it.

Fortunately, he met Bruce Walsh of the University of Regina Press at a conference. Walsh was looking
for manuscripts from Saskatchewan writers and Carpenter just happened to have one handy.

Carpenter sent The Education of Augie Merasty to him and three weeks later Walsh had accepted the
book.

“Augie had a very clear voice as a writer and David recognized something special in that, and it just
shines through in this book,” said Walsh. “You read something like that and you realize you have
something very, very special.

“I had never walked in the shoes of a child who had that experience. Never did I have that visceral
feeling of what it might have been like to be there, and Augie did such a brilliant job.”

But Carpenter had not heard from Merasty in a couple of years and they now needed to find Augie to
sign a contract.
Carpenter made a several trips to P.A. looking for a man in his 80s who was living on the street.

Through word of mouth, he found out Augie as still alive and finally found him at a detox centre where
he would sometimes sleep at night.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

He was able to get Augie’s signature for the book. Since it has been published, Merasty’s life has taken a
turn for the better.

“He has come back from the dead in a sense,” Carpenter said.

“First of all, the people who spurned him for decades, because he was the town drunk, are now
embracing him because he is a kind of hero there. None of them knew he had been abused in residential
schools to that extent. Even his kids didn’t know why he was such a bad father. All of a sudden they
knew.

“The second part is his daughters lasooed him and got him into an old folks home where there is no
drinking and that’s why he looks so great. He is so healthy it is not even fair.

“And he promises he is going to come down to the awards in Regina.”

Walsh said being able to work with Carpenter was something he had wanted to do for a long time.

“He is one of Canada’s great writers,” Walsh said of Carpenter. “He is somebody I wanted to publish and
then to be given this gem by David was an incredible gift.”

The book has been adopted in the the Regina public school system as well as being used in university
courses across the country, Walsh said.