At the beginning of January, I received my official jury summons. While I’ve been called before, even made it as far as the selection room, I’d never served on a jury before. Most people, understandably, hate jury duty. You’re away from your job and family, there’s a crap ton of sitting around and waiting, and it can just feel like a burden. In fact most people I told I’d been called groaned commiseratively and told me that they usually just ignored the summons or made outlandish statements to be excused.
Though I was worried about things like school pick-ups and drop-offs, I admit that being a juror had always been on my bucket list. In fact, I’d been telling someone just a month prior that I hoped I’d get the chance, that I feel like I’d be a great, impartial juror.
Guess someone upstairs was listening, because I was selected as Juror #1. Mercifully, it was a short, interesting case that didn’t interrupt my family or professional life too much.
So why am I writing about this now? What does my experience on jury duty have to do with writing a novel? Well, a couple of things, it turns out. As I was sitting in the jury box in the too-warm courtroom, I couldn’t help but make connections between my job as an author, and the legal world. And I wanted to share two big reminders to everyone on this book-writing journey.
Reminder #1: Your language matters
I write a lot about story structure, and the foundation of good fiction, but serving as a juror was a glaring reminder of the importance of language. It could mean the difference between rejection or acceptance. DNF or engaged reading. Or guilty or not guilty, as it did for the defendant in the case I worked on.
The charge against the defendant was one count of child endangerment. Scary, I know, especially as a parent of a young boy the same age as the victim. Thankfully the child was unharmed, but he escaped from his backyard and was found naked on a public high school property that bordered the defendant’s house. Not a great situation, and one that could have resulted in a much different outcome.
So, we jurors listened to evidence for two days, and then had to make a decision on whether this boy’s stepfather had endangered him. The prosecution made a fairly strong case, drawing our attention to the inflatable kiddie pool the child had unsupervised access to, the busy streets surrounding the neighborhood, the undressed state of the kid when he was found, the fact that the defendant had been working in his garage while the kid was left unsupervised for some indeterminate amount of time.
A lot of mistakes were made here. And yet…
As the closing arguments were read, we were required to focus on the language of the law being tried. The lawmakers had defined child endangerment within an inch of its life, clearly drawing lines about what it meant to be criminally negligent, what “ordinary” recklessness means, what foreseeable risk means, what duty of care means, etc.
The result: a non-guilty verdict. (Now remember, “not-guilty” doesn’t mean innocent.) Based on the language of the law, we did not believe the defendant to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Would the charge have been for child neglect, maybe the verdict would have been different…but that wasn’t the definition we had in front of us to judge the defendant and the evidence upon.
As writers, our chief medium is emotions, but we create them with our primary tool: words. Your words have meaning and power. They matter.
Think of the difference between a line of dialogue saying “I hate you” vs. “I abhor you.” Though they mean similar things, one has more strength, more weight. Moreover, the type of person using “abhor” is different from one who might just use “hate.” Not to mention things like tone, personality, situation, etc. Are they being sarcastic? Are they joking? Are they muttering it under their breath while holding a knife?
My advice: Be clear. Be specific. Be vivid.
Readers bring their own perspective, their own experiences, their own biases to the book, and it’s up to you to show them what to think and believe.
Which leads me to my next reminder…
Reminder #2: It’s your job as an author to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt.
In the trial, it was impressed upon us that it’s the prosecution’s job to prove the charge is true, beyond reasonable doubt. They carry the burden of proof, in other words. So, it was to the District Attorney lawyer’s job to show how the evidence proved that this man, the defendant, was guilty.
Your job, as writer, is to do the same thing. You are showing the reader evidence of who a person is and what their motives are. As the author, you get to zoom in on the things that are going to prove whether your character is decent, or fractured, or heartbroken, or a villain. You alone hold the camera that will choose what the reader is privy to.
As I was listening to the testimony of different witnesses and police personnel, I was aware of so many things the prosecution was leaving out: where was the mother, really, in all this? What did CPS think? There were pieces of the story left out on purpose. Why? Because the evidence didn’t support his case (and maybe there are other legal loopholes I’m unaware of).
When we are trying to dig into a character, there are going to be pieces of their lives we don’t show—things that are either irrelevant to the story or that don’t support the point we are trying to make. But it is your job to build a case for your protagonist(s), and prove to readers, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are who you are portraying them as.
Let’s say that in your mind you have your character built up as someone who is altruistic. In your head they pull over to help people with flat tires, or they give generously to animal shelters, or they volunteer at senior care centers joyfully…but what if you don’t put that evidence on the page? What if we, the readers, never see them doing kind things? What if we only see them on their worst day, when they make a mistake, and we judge them harshly, bringing our own biases with us?
You cannot allow that to happen. The burden of proof is on you to show us who your character is.
Of course this isn’t just limited to characterization, though I think that’s the most important element you’re trying to prove. It can also be about world-building, or plot points and cause and effect. If you don’t act as that camera-person, that prosecutor trying to pointedly show us what is fact/truth, then people may or may not buy it. And for readers to buy fiction—to really connect with it and revere it—it must feel absolutely true. Beyond reasonable doubt.
So be careful and selective in the details you show us. Ask yourself whether this character, scene, setting, line of dialogue, whatever, supports the point you’re trying to make. It’s a tall order, but it’s also one of the best things about being a writer: you get to choose what to show the reader.
Choose wisely.
Happy Writing!
Karyn
Share this post