on The Write Life:

While it’s essential to have a good story, giving context in your writing is key to giving the story meaning.

Imagine you’re in a bookstore and you pick up a book with an intriguing title. You open it to start to read the first chapter and it’s dialogue between a few characters.

Imagine reading it for a few pages but there’s no hint to who the characters are or what is going on. There are a lot of emotions but there’s no context or understanding of what is happening in the story. You would get frustrated and most likely put the book back down.

This is exactly why context in writing is so important. It gives your readers a full understanding of the setting, what is happening between characters, and gives meaning behind all of the events happening.

Imagine reading something like Harry Potter but with no context that they’re in a world where magic exists. Or reading a Jane Austen novel without knowing the family dynamic or the social dynamics.

When you provide the reader with context, they can comfortably follow the story because they know what’s happening and why certain characters do what they do.

We’ll go over what context is, the types you can give readers, and how to integrate it in your overall writing.