In my last post, I made suggestions on how to hook your reader. So what’s next? What does the writer do once the reader is hooked? Simple. Keep the reader hanging on.
First, each chapter should end with a cliffhanger. If you’re familiar with the ABC series LOST, then you know that at the end of each episode, something compelling happened to keep the viewer’s attention so they would tune in next time. It’s the same with fiction. You want to keep the reader absorbed in the plot of your story chapter after chapter after chapter.
How do you end each chapter with a cliffhanger? The same way you hooked readers in the beginning. Create a situation so intense and intriguing that the reader can’t put the book down. As with the ‘hook’ place questions in the reader’s mind that they must have answers to in order to go on with their lives.
For example, last time we looked at the hook sentence for The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards. We discovered a baby was about to be born during a snowstorm. As the chapter closes, the author now provides a sentence to draw us into reading on. Ms. Edwards writes: “I am so sorry. Our little daughter died as she was born.” In this scene, the father is breaking the news to the mother. When I read this the first time I immediately started the next chapter because I wanted to know how the mother would respond to the devastating information.
There are other factors that keep our readers reading. Readers want characters that are believable and relatable. They want a clear point of view. In other words, they want to be clear about who is telling the story. Readers want surprises in their plots and sub-plots. Predictability is boring. By the way, readers expect a plot. A story without a plot is like a pillow case without a pillow. Flat. Readers want a balance of dialogue and narrative. Most of all readers want honesty. Craft is important but so is heart. Let your story flow from the core of your heart, and your reader will be hooked and hang on from beginning to end.
Write well,
Mata
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