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I want to be clear: what this should really be titled is, “What Keeps Chuck Reading.” Your mileage may vary, and as such, you should drop down into the comments and tell us: what is it about a book that keeps you reading? I wanna know. All writers everywhere want to know. We hang on your every word. Like spider monkeys from a banana tree.
Conflict is the key to writing an interesting and dramatic story.
When you come across a moment where the main character faces a difficulty, that is a precious and valuable thing to have found. You need to keep digging until you get it all out.
What you shouldn’t do is find ways to make the problem go away. In real life you should, in fiction you shouldn’t.
There are three main cop-outs I encounter again and again when it comes to writers creating a wonderful opportunity for conflict and then running away from it as quickly as possible. If you do any of these, you need to stop. You’ve found gold, stop throwing it away. 
Have you ever walked into a room, thought you were alone, and then realized someone else was there? A little jarring, right? It's unexpected and totally throws you. Well, you can do the same thing to your reader if you forget to let them know there are other characters in the scene besides the narrator. When looking for inspiration, you should never be afraid to use what you know. Our friends, family, co-workers, neighbors and acquaintances are what we know… so we should use them. That said, there can be inherent dangers in using the people we know, even if we don’t ever admit they were inspiration for our work (a great example of this is Kathryn Stockett and her best seller “The Help”.) Still, with a little care you can use the people you know and they will likely be none the wiser (unless you open your big mouth *wink, wink*). There are a few ways you can take advantage of the wealth of characters in your life: The story’s written, and now you’re either working on rewrites or a final polish. Maybe you’re thinking about introducing your characters and their world to a few beta readers or your critique partner.
Before you do, why not try one more step?
This is not an article on craft or mechanics. Not really. It’s about vision. Or feeling. It’s about your story talking to you. 
An author builds a narrative with thousands of tiny details.
Even before a reader knows what the book is really about, it’s through the gradual accumulation of these crucial moments, objects, movements, sounds, smells and touches that the power and meaning of the story emerges. 
If you’d asked me last year whether ebooks would ever fully replace regular books, I would have told you there was no way. Both my husband and my mom insist they prefer “real” books. I’ve only seen one person in my town with an e-reader.
While I still don’t think paper books will ever go extinct, I do think ebooks are eventually going to put “real” books on the endangered species list. Jane Friedman, e-book editor and publisher, wants to see on a novel's first page "an interesting character and the problem they face." She read a stack of opening pages aloud and told her audience at the Missouri Writers Guild conference about the red flags that tell an editor that a novel in manuscript is not yet ready to be published. She stressed that she reads at least the first 10 pages of each manuscript, but listed these as the most common first-page errors and cliches: 
This is the third installment in our exploration of Christian Vogler’s archetypes. In previous posts we have looked at the Hero, Mentor, Threshold Guardian, and Herald archetypes. In this penultimate post on the subject, we examine two more archetypes: Shapeshifter and Shadow. 
I keep noodling on the idea of how you earn — not build, necessarily, but earn — your audience as a creative type. I’m not sure I have all (or any of) the answers, but here’s a good shot at it. Note that this list isn’t meant to be a bunch of checkboxes — you don’t need to do all of these (or even any of them, beyond the first). It’s just meant to offer thoughts and options. Use what you like. Discard the rest. 
Every now and then I see someone make mention that hand-in-hand with the decline in post-free sales, free books are not being downloaded in the same numbers as they were earlier in the year.
Is it true? Or does it just feel that way? It's a statistical claim, so what data is the observation based on? 
We all dream of writing novels that readers can’t put down. Stories so engrossing they cause people to run into stationary objects while flipping pages; plots so compelling that perfectly sensible adults will sacrifice sleep in order to read “just one more chapter”, even if it means falling asleep on their desk at work.
But how? |
Creating a good villain is challenging. In The Fire in Fiction, Donald Maass discusses the difficulty of writing a good villain: “…they are frequently cardboard. Most are presented as purely evil.”
To create villains with depth, it’s important to consider positive character traits as well as negative ones. I love the character of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter books, because early in the series, Harry sees him as a typical, mean, unlikable villain, but as the books move along, Dumbledore has mysterious faith in him, and it leads me, as a reader to question how I feel about him along. 
Have you ever read a story you wrote and feel like it’s missing something?
It’s probably got something to do with that age-old writing advice: “Show, don’t tell.”
But why does “telling” fall flat? The part of the brain where we process words is not the same part of the brain where we process emotions. Sure, you know what “grief” means, but when you read the word it doesn’t make you feel grief, does it? 
Let’s first ask ourselves why we read fiction? For a vicarious kick, to get what we usually avoid in our lives: DRAMA.
When we say a story was good drama, that means we got a lot of entertaining tension and conflict.
Tension and conflict, what’s the difference? 
This past weekend I attended the DFW Writer's Conference. And one of the most entertaining sessions of that conference is the Gong show. They did it last year and I wrote a post on it here. So I thought I'd do the same thing again since I think it's a really helpful exercise. One of the awesomely cool things about taking an online writing course is the fun new ways you learn about old techniques. I love it when something you already know clicks in your head because now you fully understand the concept. And you can point out what you’ve learned in every published book you read. 
Characters are the key to your story. You want readers to connect with your main characters as quickly as possible. They should be able to see them, know them and be interested in them.
If you want the character to really make a strong first impression you need to find a way to get under the reader’s skin. How do you do that? We have discussed sentences as to types, combinations, and usage to offer a variety in writing. Now, let's look at another way to have assorted sentences to help keep the reader's interest: using diverse sentence beginnings.
When we are trying to generate ideas in order to solve a problem, whether through anti-conventional thinking, brainstorming or another method, we typically distance ourselves slightly from the problem. We look for ideas on how to improve our company’s product, how to deliver better customer service, how to cut costs or alternative business models. In all of these cases, we separate ourselves from the problem and, by doing so, we potentially limit our understanding of the problem. So now you are either self-publishing or thinking about self-publishing.
Yes, welcome to the world of everybody.
I have a question for you. Do you actually want to make some money at it?
I saw a very interesting article recently on the excellent Editor's Blog by Beth Hill.
In her post titled Include Surprises in Your Stories, Beth reminds fiction writers of the importance of surprising their readers, to keep them interested in their story and avoid boring them. 
There’s a lot of talk about whether books are priced fairly. Ebooks especially get a lot of flak for being .99c or free.
Various arguments are made for paying a fair price, not flooding the market, quality control. A popular one is that people value things based on how much they pay for them.
The truth is all this fretting has nothing to do with money. It’s got to do with how you feel about yourself as a writer. It’s got to do with how you think other’s see you. It’s got to do with being valued as a person, and worrying that you're not. 
“While it is easy to think-up why we like or don’t like something, we don’t usually think about it from the perspective of what is interesting about the idea.”
We make decisions all the time. Big ones, small ones, easy and tough. Making the right choice can be obvious, and sometimes it requires time invested in thought. Luckily we have simple tools to help. |
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