Red Széll

It will highlight bad prose really badly.

If it sounds acceptable in that Stephen Hawking voice, then you know you've nailed it.

If you can understand, you know, if you come away going, oh, I understood that, then you know you've nailed it.

Totally and utterly immersive.

It's where I actually forget that I'm reading or being narrated to and I am part of that story.

I can almost visualize myself on set with the rest of the characters in the book.

And I think there's something that we haven't actually talked about that authors need to do to augment that.

And it's to put in things that we as readers can recognise, can grasp hold of.

Whether that's sensations, feelings, smells...

or specific details.

So if I'm reading a book about London, you know, it helps if somebody says, Big Ben was chiming in the background and he could see over the river to Southwark Cathedral.

And it's something that immediately, oh, right, okay, I've got my reference points in this book, either physical or visual, what a concrete, but they help immerse me.

They help me feel that I am part of this story.

Bad writing will always jolt you out of that emotion and you'll just go, oh, that feels uncomfortable.

And then you start thinking about the author rather than the characters of the story.

And, you know, this is not to say that things have to be simplified.

You can still be reading something which is actually very complex, but you feel that you're in safe hands because it is being read.

deliberately and intentionally explained to you in a way that feels comfortable.

Sometimes I equate it to being back in... I used to love history lessons at school because we had a fantastic history teacher who could actually make you believe that you were part of the Peasants' Revolt or that you were a Catholic living under...

Henry VIII's rule and what would you do and how scared would you be?