Three Sources of Reader's Trance
As I'm working on some Essay Architecture wiki pages, I’ve caught myself saying ‘this causes reader’s trance’ in a few different spots. I used to think it needed to have a single source, but now my latest thinking is it’s a combination of these three:
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Tension (story/subtext): which is about having something slightly in the future that drives you forward. This is like a personal sense of stakes/curiosity where you’re invested in what happens. (ethos)
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Flow: which is about the actual smoothness of your syntax. It’s the ability to a complex soup of ideas and create a tight linear rail where the reader can process a lot without friction. (Even if you build tension, the trance is broken if it’s hard to wade through paragraphs. (logos).
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Sight/Sound: When your prose is laced with imagery & sonic devices (rhythm, rhyme, repetition), it hits us in our two primary senses. I feel like part of reader’s trance is when you can actually see/hear/feel it (it’s more like a hallucination than something abstract).
So together: tension moves you forward, flow keeps you moving, and sight/sound activates the imagination as you’re in motion. (And side note: I think paragraph transitions are the most likely places where reader’s trance gets broken; it’s like dropping the baton in a relay race).