Keeping 'em reading

[Toby Frost]

Now, there's no substitute for good writing. But there are techniques used by readers to keep readers turning the pages.

The obvious one is cliffhangers. X is on the scaffold, noose around his neck, when a messenger runs in and is stopped by the guard. Then the chapter switches. What will happen? Only one way to find out!

There's also the idea of mounting threat or a mystery that has to be solved, which carries on from scene to scene. From Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to The Stepford Wives, the mystery powers the plot. Who did it? or Why did these things happen? Sometimes, you know the answer before the characters (as per Fatherland by Robert Harris) but it's what happens when they find out that keeps you going. It's the old unresolved tension thing.

I think you also see this in the setting and the characters, which is another reason not to pile on backstory at the start of a book. If X flies into an angsty rage every time he sees an onion, don't explain it immediately. His onion-trauma can be used later. Similarly, H.G. Wells didn't immediately explain why the Eloi went underground when they heard the siren. It he had, The Time Machine would have been much worse.

There is also the possibility of serious detriment to the characters. The adorable puppy is eaten, the heroine remains a spinster, Sauron annexes the Shire, etc. The trouble with this is that you can only threaten this a certain number of times before the reader gets bored and thinks "Oh, not this puppy stuff again. Just eat him and get on with it!". This is why most horror films leave me cold. You need more than just screaming: the people in danger have to be actually likeable.

Which brings me on to the other side of the coin. A character making a plan is, to my mind, a huge incentive to read on. Passive characters are boring, no matter how sympathetic they're meant to be. A character who makes plans is sympathetic because they're trying to better their situation (if only in a small way) and because we want to know whether their plans will succeed. So we read on.

I think I'd also add "having a clear goal in sight". A story with no end is just soap opera, however it's dressed up. You need to think that there will be a conclusion, and that it will be worth the effort.

Can anyone think of any others? I'm sure there are loads that I've missed.

 

[FibonacciEddie]

My favourite is "Reading to see the early-stage villain get his/her comeuppance"

Very oblique example (but true) >> During the summer on 1985 (ish), I worked on a farm. There was a grizzled old labourer there, Old-Bill, who'd been hoeing the fields for 60yrs. From what I could gather, he and his wife only watched the Australian Soap "Return to Eden." The villain was a lady called Jilly, and all Old-Bill would say (10hrs per day, 6 days per week, 10 weeks per season) was, "That Jilly, she'll come unstuck."

 

[thaddeus6th]

Short chapters. I often read a chapter at a time, and if I finish one faster than expected I might end up reading a second or third.

I also think it might be worth having shorter chapters near the start and end, as it may help a reader get into a book more quickly, and to add a feeling of pace* nearer the end.

*Obviously the writing's got to reflect that.

Morally ambivalent characters who you can see going either way are also engaging, because you don't know if they're going to end up saving the day or slitting the throats of the 'goodies'.

A decent subplot helps too, so you can avoid having everything be about the main plot, give the reader a break (and some variety) and you can sometimes have more light relief there (in much the same way secondary characters can be more fun and carefree than a protagonist or antagonist).

 

[HareBrain]

For me, yes, a character who's made a plan to get what he wants, a plan that ought to work but which has a good chance of failure, is a big incentive to read on -- much more than a situation where the characters seem hard-pressed and you can't figure out how they'll escape.

Mostly what keeps me reading, though, is mystery, usually some deep background mystery about the nature of reality or the world. If the author seems to have something genuinely interesting to say about such things, it can keep me going through almost anything.

 

[Toby Frost]

I suppose there's "Wanting the villain to get what's coming", but this is about the crudest trick in the book. Villains of this sort tend to be ridiculous monsters who spend their every waking hour mutilating peasants, threatening the heroine's chastity and cackling insanely on top of a heap of severed limbs, and are generally rubbish. Of course, history has been (and is) full of unadulterated scumbags, but somehow they don't read well in SFF. It tends to make the writer look a bit silly, in my opinion.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I suppose there's "Wanting the villain to get what's coming", but this is about the crudest trick in the book.

In many ways I totally agree with you - sometimes such a plot arc is signposted so brightly I have to wear shades to continue reading the book...

...yet it can be an extremely compelling if handled well, I've found. I stick my hand up to admitting that I've been hooked by this method on certain books. And depends I suppose on the tone of the genre your reading. If you are expecting a 'penny dreadful' i.e. The Da Vinci Code, then you may desperately want a nasty villain twirling his moustache and almost 'winning' but actually ending with a suitable comeuppance. Because that's the pantomime you signed up for!

The corollary of this old chestnut might be the weak, pathetic and irritating characters who you cheer when they finally get bumped off. Not 'bad' evil by choice, but indirectly bad by some sort of 'lack of moral fibre' or some selfish personal reason. Although the author can give them the opportunity to do a final act of bravery or to do the right thing. Possibly to atone for killing them off.

 

[Venusian Broon]

An extreme variant on the 'Mystery' theme is I suppose the Locked Room Mystery. When you reach a point in the narrative where it seems something impossible has occurred and it makes you, the reader, desperate to find out how this could be explained or resolved.

PKD tended to do a lot of this, invariably with reality rather than something as mundane as a murder! I call it the Dickian WTF moment.

The problem with such an approach is if the explanation is a bit 'cheating' (i.e. like the old Flash Gordon serials where one episode would end with them clearly smothered in lava in an inescapable tunnel, but we find the next week that the episode backtracks a bit and they found a secret hatch that allowed them to get out of the way.) or just lame, because it can really destroy the potency of the overall book IMO.

 

[tinkerdan]

I don't see the ending of the chapter as being all that important toward moving me forward. There are a number of reasons I say this. One is that I can easily see some books that have ended a thread at the end of a chapter and I've seen ones that thread in a second thread and I've see the cliffhanger that doesn't necessarily follow in the next chapter.

What I think is more important is that every chapter begins like the first chapter. There is some engaging hook that brings the reader into that chapter. Yes you might have something engaging at the end of the last chapter and it might be that the next chapter is right there continuing the story or it may span a chapter before it continues, so the blood might be pumping and the rush is there and you go to the next chapter and the entry into that falls flat and then you fall to sleep.

If you want to keep them reading you keep it engaging throughout the chapter and end it the way the story needs it to end, but don't drop the ball in the next chapter. Step up the pace by creating the new chapter hook and then keep it interesting. You could almost look at every chapter as if it were it's own short story.

 

[FibonacciEddie]

I have to disagree (albeit mildly) ... although I haven't ever tried to write "Wanting the villain ... etc" it isn't the crudest trick in the book ... surely the crudest is "Hero gets the girl ... " ... which I have written

 

[Toby Frost]

I think in principle, you're right. Whether or not the hero gets the girl should be a reason to read on, but in many cases it’s such a given that there’s no tension. Quite often the fact that two characters of different genders are in danger at the same time is all that is required for them to end up in bed together. In a very bad novel that I tried to read this year, the hero was essentially a charmless, murderous orc, who for absolutely no reason was irresistible to every female character, even when covered in blood. He wasn’t even rich. It ended up as one of a number of reasons to stop reading. However, when it is done well – The Forever War, for example – the question can be good for pulling the reader on. I would say the same thing about The First Law, but after a while I figured the books out and realised that everyone had to be miserable and alone, so it couldn’t happen. There might be a lesson in that: however bleak the tone, it pays to give the characters a fighting chance of success.

 

[Brian G Turner]

IMO one of the cleverest and most effective tools to keep a reader engaged is to create an environment of injustice. It forces the reader to empathise, and makes them reader on to see how this is overcome.

I've tried to use it myself, but unless the structure allows it from the start, it can be very difficult to apply.

Harry Potter excelled in it, and it arguably drives The Hunger Games. It starts off Ender's Game, too.

 

[HareBrain]

IMO one of the cleverest and most effective tools to keep a reader engaged is to create an environment of injustice.

This is a tricky one for me. Often the portrayal of injustice in a story can put me off, because it seems such an obvious device (the "defeat the bullies" storyline). And sometimes the injustice is perpetuated only because the "system" is too stupid or corrupt to recognise or redress it. This might be realistic in some cases, but in many cases it isn't (police don't investigate properly, adults in children's stories refuse to listen to the kids, etc -- these all happen in reality, but often in fiction they seem to happen as a convenience to allow the plot). In any case I find it depressing. I'm not that interested in stories where the primary aim is to right an injustice -- that just puts the character where they should have been at the beginning, if that -- which is great for them but not for me, because if I hadn't started the book the injustice would never have happened in the first place. I'd much rather read something about (also) building or discovering something new. This is all personal, of course, and I realise it might sound completely crackers.

 

[Michael Colton]

I think the one that can drive me the most is when an interesting character's viewpoints or underlying worldview is not explained. If I find the parts of them currently revealed interesting, I am very likely to be curious about their viewpoints regarding the world building the writer has accomplished. For my own personal taste, the foundational principles and worldview of too many characters is established immediately.

 

[The Ace]

Don't tell a reader that the greatest opportunity to befall his country in over 300 years is motivated by racism.

 

[FibonacciEddie]

I think the one that can drive me the most is when an interesting character's viewpoints or underlying worldview is not explained. If I find the parts of them currently revealed interesting, I am very likely to be curious about their viewpoints regarding the world building the writer has accomplished. For my own personal taste, the foundational principles and worldview of too many characters is established immediately.

... I enjoy reading this type of structure ... but it must be difficult to write (I have not tried) ...

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I'd add one more - an engaging character. Someone you want to cheer on in whatever is happening. Here's where GOT falls down for me. It's got a lot of engaging characters I want to cheer on. But they keep getting brutally killed!

Cheers, Greg.

 

[FibonacciEddie]

There's the Redemption/Lazarus theme... where you are willing the anti-hero to mend their ways, and the writer toys with you