Every playwright knows you don't put a gun onstage unless you intend to use it. That's a good rule to follow, no matter what kind of writing you do. A careless hint or a subject that's raised and then dropped is a gun left in plain view but never fired. It's a promise to the audience—"Trust me to deliver the goods"—that's never kept.
A writer makes promises to keep the reader reading (or the audience awake). The promises can be quite obvious, like saying you have a major announcement to make, or more subtle, like the gun that leaves folks wondering when it will go off.
A promise is anything that piques interest and begs for explanation: As we shall see, his failure to test the bungee cords was to have tragic consequences. Or: Leona bailed out at $13 a share, a decision she would later regret. Or: They kissed outside the cryogenics lab, vowing to meet again in a better world, but it was not to be.
Even small details can be promises. You might begin a profile of a corporate executive by describing her office, littered with promises: a wheelchair in one corner, a stuffed sailfish on the wall, a half-eaten jelly doughnut on the desk. Every promise raises a question. Is that her wheelchair? If so, what happened? Did she land that fish? Is she going to finish the doughnut? Readers will keep reading because they want to know.
And you have to tell them. An audience has the memory of an elephant. Never raise expectations you don't plan to meet. You might forget a casual teaser, but readers won't. And what you see as an insignificant aside (He knew he had to fix that step one of these days) might seem a portent to your readers. Don't leave them hanging.
Suppose you're writing a magazine article on dry-cleaning methods and you mention that you were furious when your marabou boa came back from the cleaner's. Readers will expect to be told why. Or you're giving a speech on exotic pets and you happen to recall warning your late brother-in-law not to hand-feed his crocodile. The audience will expect to hear the rest of the story, so keep your promise.
Those of you with attention deficit disorder may need nudging, especially if you're writing something long. Jot down a note whenever you make a promise in your writing—when you mention a subject or refer to an incident you plan to pick up later. Stick your reminder in an obvious place, on a wall or bulletin board or at the edge of your computer terminal. Any loose ends should be tied up eventually.
Our reading, both fiction and nonfiction, is full of promises that hint at where we're going and help move us along. Since we could be going almost anywhere, a promise can hint at almost anything, from unusual plot twists to a startling scientific discovery.
A promise or two at the beginning of a book can give readers a taste of what's to come:
"How did our Sun come into being, what keeps it hot and luminous, and what will be its ultimate fate?"
(George Gamow,
The Birth and Death of the Sun)
"This is the saddest story I have ever heard."
(Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier)
"Benjamin Disraeli's career was an extraordinary one; but there is no need to make it seem more extraordinary than it really was."
(Robert Blake, Disraeli)
A promise at the end of a chapter can engage readers and make them turn the page. In these examples, the promise is a note of suspense:
"As the year of 1931 ran its uneasy course, with five million wage earners out of work, the middle classes facing ruin, the farmers unable to meet their mortgage payments, the Parliament paralyzed, the government floundering, the eighty-four-year-old President fast sinking into the befuddlement of senility, a confidence mounted in the breasts of the Nazi chieftains that they would not have long to wait."
(William L. Shirer,
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich)
"Halfway down I paused and leaned on the handrail and told myself that I was descending into trouble: a pretty young woman with a likable boy and a wandering husband. A hot wind was blowing in my face."
(Ross Macdonald, The Underground Man)
"The truth about his new American correspondent was a great deal stranger than this detached, innocent, and otherworldly Scotsman could have ever imagined."
(Simon Winchester,
The Professor and the Madman)
"It would be many hours before I learned that everything had not in fact turned out great—that nineteen men and women were stranded up on the mountain by the storm, caught in a desperate struggle for their lives."
(Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air)
Promises can put readers on the alert that something important is about to happen. In these passages, hints of ominous doings create a sense of foreboding:
"Now I thought: There's going to be trouble here."
(V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River)
"So do not forget this Marvin Macy, as he is to act a terrible part in the story which is yet to come."
(Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café)
"From my father I inherited an optimism which did not leave me until recently."
(Joan Didion, Play It as It Lays)
"Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there."
(Truman Capote, In Cold Blood)
Promises are glue, gripping the reader's attention by holding a long piece of writing together. A good writer can juggle three or four or more promises at once, so there's always something else the reader wants to know, another reason not to switch off the light and go to bed.
Some promises, though, are subtle; the reader recognizes them only in retrospect. They may be as unobtrusive as a recurring image, like the umbrellas that pop up at fateful moments in Madame Bovary. Flaubert's first mention of an umbrella comes early in the novel, when the local priest tells the innkeeper he's left his umbrella behind and asks that it be sent on to him. That same evening, the Bovarys arrive in town. They dine at the inn, and then a servant carrying the curé's umbrella shows them to their new home. Later, Emma Bovary will buy her lover a present from an umbrella shop, a costly gift that she has to steal from her husband to pay for. And still later, she secretly meets another lover in a raging storm. As lightning flashes around them, they embrace and kiss—under an umbrella.
Whether they're subtle or not so subtle, promises make a book worth reading again and again because they seem more meaningful with each reading. As you read and as you write, think about promises and keep your eye on the ball—or the umbrella. And anytime you raise the reader's expectations, remember that you have promises to keep.