Draft is a series about the art and craft of writing.

This is the eighth and last in a series of writing lessons by the author, starting with the basics and leading to more advanced techniques.

When I was a child, my father, an Army officer, was posted to South Korea. Each week, he would send us the Sunday comics, along with a cassette in which he read them out loud. He didn’t want us to forget the sound of his voice.

My father was quite the raconteur. He let his voice go gravelly when reading the part of Sarge in “Beetle Bailey,” and he adopted a suave register when playing Prince Valiant. He knew that good storytelling required not just a good story (or at least some decent comics), but also a good storyteller.

In writing, the connection between storyteller and audience is just as important. By using some subtle devices, a narrator can reach out to the reader and say, “We’re in this together.” Read more…