The Next Page—and the One After

What keeps readers turning pages, and why do you care? The first answer is complicated, the second simple. Without enthusiastic momentum, your reader—whether agent, publisher, or audience—is gone.

Happily, there’s more than one way to keep those fingers moving, because each reader turns pages for slightly different reasons. Here are some possibilities:

~ Suspense

This asset occurs frequently, because many readers and writers associate the novel with impassioned curiosity about what’s next. The supremacy of plot is somewhat genre dependent. Still, whatever your style or subject, don’t skimp on this expectation. Every genre needs some sort of tension on every page.

~ Characterization

Re-examine To Kill  Mockingbird, and its rather antiquated style might dismay you.  Why, then, do so many people list it as their most favorite ever? Few kids rival Scout’s gloriously naive sense of right and wrong. The same might be said of her extremely mature dad. Create characters one can’t forget, and readers will sigh when there are no more pages to turn.

~ Scenario

What do the Da Vinci Code and the Harry Potter series share in common? A wide range of people respond to mystery, underdogs, resourcefulness, and archetypes. Of course it rarely makes sense to replace the scenario that calls to you with a more marketable one. But it makes terrific sense to add heft, originality, danger. Can you make the Concept bigger? More enticing?

~ Emotions

Unless your characters experience them deeply, your readers won’t experience them at all. Yet belabor or “tell” about feelings, and readers still won’t respond. Emotions are concrete, dynamic responses to reality. Present them that way.

~ Secrets

Who doesn’t love them? But if we know too much or little, those whispers can irritate more than intrigue. It never hurts to map out how and when you dispense your novel’s secrets.

~ Humor 

Whether or not your novel is a comic one, exploit every opportunity for laughter, including the bleak irony of tragedy.

~ Poetry

Some novelists write so beautifully that we want more and more and more. At least occasionally, join them.

~ Intellectual curiosity

Those interested in classical music, RNA, or history can’t wait to see what Richard Powers will teach them on the next page of The Gold Bug Variations. What’s your audience curious about?

Whether drama, originality, voice, insight, or point of view, there’s more than one way to keep readers losing sleep and missing calls because they can’t put your book down.

Tip:  Know, internalize, and use your best tricks to keep the pages turning.

Dogs Are Magnets

Not for everyone, of course. But pups in particular magnetize many of us the way any body of water summons Labrador retrievers to plunge right in. For fiction readers, too, certain possibilities magnetize. Most prominent of these is name recognition. Until you’re famous yourself, you can’t do much about that one. Not to worry. You can choose among plenty of other magnets.

~ Concept.

The actual definition is simply an idea. But screenwriting has elevated Concept much the way it elevates everything else. The concept is A Big Idea. BIG! Not a skirmish—a world war; not a failed romance—a love or death dilemma, not just intriguing— but ensnaring. Concepts differ across genres. The Concept might involve a new way to think about baseball (Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding) or art (Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch), or genetics (Richard Powers’s The Gold-Bug Variations).  But whatever the genre, the idea must feel BIG.

~ Scenario.

Whether or not you liked Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, the scenario’s unbeatable. Murder. Secret sects. The Holy Grail. Sex. The Louvre. This doesn’t mean you should ever write something only because it might sell. Who wants a write for the market? After all, by the time you finish your Vampire Trilogy, space might be the new thing. However, if your heart lies with parent/child relationships, it helps to have the integrity that The Memory Keeper’s Daughter offers. Where’s the gold in your own scenario? Seek it, and you’ll strengthen not only your novel’s premise and marketability, but the novel itself.

~ Darkness laced with levity.

For whatever reason, many people adore that forbidden underbelly in the venues of tabloid, gangster movie, True Crime, and memoir about victims defeating catastrophe. If you’re willing to plunge into those murky waters, do it. Probe the dark secrets of whatever you’re writing about. The intrigue of nightmare, childhood memory, and buried fantasy resides in those depths. But! Unmitigated darkness reeks of gloom. How to balance it? Irony, wit, humor.

~ Triumph against all odds.

People love heroes. Also underdogs and people who help themselves.  Probably most of all, people love the athlete who wins despite disability; the insecure guy who lands the huge contract, or the singer who emerges from the woodwork to become an international phenomenon. Leave your protagonist room for an arc. But never start with a protagonist arc that’s under the cellar.

~ Truly sexy sex.

Unsexy sex bombards us. Nakedness rather than nudity, crudeness rather than innuendo. What about that flash of Ginger Roger’s ankle beneath her long, twirling chiffon dress? Or Matthew McConaughey’s half-open white shirt? Hints generally seduce better than blatant exposure.

~ Dogs.

As a last resort, you could always add some sort of puppy. At least for this reader. Works every time.

Tip: Write the book you want to! But if you want readers, magnetize them.

Private Jokes Are No Joking Matter

Did you hear the one about the hen at the hectic intersection? Yawn. The only thing funny about a well-worn comic moment is someone thinking it’s funny. But genuinely “funny”? That matters. It doesn’t just give novels depth and texture beyond basic plot and theme. Humor makes novels better simply because everybody likes to laugh. And private jokes are the best of all.

So. Take a second to picture yourself with a spouse, partner, or dear friend roaring with laughter over—something hilarious only to the two of you. This is a special kind of funny. Whether slapstick, witty, subtle, or all of the above, it feels personal. No one else quite gets it. That’s the point.

Personal humor (or anything else for that matter) is special. It feels slightly illicit, which most of us find sensual. A private joke involves a clique, if only of two, so it’s exclusive. In-group humor depends on insider information and is thus a commodity. All great, but can you do that in your novel? Of course.

~ Set the scene.

Bad jokes inundate with context. Decent jokes offer almost enough. Great jokes hint what the audience needs to know, preferably in advance and just clearly enough to command attention without being obvious.

~ Plant seeds.

Good jokes, in fiction and everywhere else, build slowly, often in three’s: A vague reference, a slightly more pointed one, then—whomp!—the punchline.

~ Use slightly esoteric references.

If you never ask readers to stretch for dim recollections about Paul Bunyan, Walter Cronkite, the Uncertainty Principle, or Teddy Roosevelt, then no private joke is possible. Private jokes depend on a somewhat arcane reference clicking into place.

~ Suggest rather than state character behavior.

Forget those tedious assumptions about prom queens or neurosurgeons. Instead, give your astronaut or whatever traits that plot forces to the surface. Humor flourishes with the surprise of foiled expectations.

~ Use the five senses.

A good joke is not just something you hear or read, but one you can at least visualize, and, ideally, connect with viscerally.

~ Mix and match.

Blend graphics, word play, irony, and burlesque. Besiege us in more than one way and—we’ll love your book all the more for the fun we’re having.

Tip: Charm your readers not just with public jokes but private ones.

Tension and Texture

In fiction, creative nonfiction, or screenplay, a good storyteller adds layers to elevate story beyond plot, infusing it with humor, originality, psychological insight, and deeper understanding of the human condition. If a story seems multi-dimensional instead of flat, that’s texture.

Tip: Texture enhances tension by making what happens more original, empathetic, and thus haunting.

Only so many basic plots exist. But you can add texture in as many ways as there are writers to add layering.

Film is a terrific vehicle for investigating texture. Your commitment is hours instead of weeks, and you can find many free screenplays on line. “Silver Linings Playbook” is a good example.

It opens with protagonist Pat’s main concerns: His biological family and his wife.

~ We know what’s at stake right at the starting line.

The protagonist immediately explains that the situation is his fault—but it’s going to be better. Because he’ll see to it.

~ We immediately know how much we like this guy: He’s honest, responsible, resilient.

The protagonist’s room in the institution appears next: Jar of mayo, black trash bag, and the sign “excelsior.”

~ We know this story might be dark, sad, and romantic: It’ll be funny, too.

Then the group therapy session starts.

~ We can expect realism: We can expect an antidote to grim realism, as well.

After that, Pat’s doctor warns that his mom’s taking him home without medical approval.

~ We know, because we know how stories work: He’s just not ready.

That means trouble. Count on it. 

If you haven’t seen this, do. So the synopsis stops here. If you watch it and/or read the screenplay, notice how playing with expectations creates texture. What’s happiness? What’s sad or funny, sane or crazy? What’s true love? Who deserves what—and why do they?

This film lets you examine ways to open, interweave plot with theme, create likable characters, and transform individual predicaments to universal ones. It does that with texture.