Writing that Grabs and Holds the Reader
Notes from “How To Grab & Hold Your Readers”
Lincoln Mall Author Festival, Freeport, Illinois, November 23, 2024
Let me start with a question: What do you believe is the key to grabbing and holding a reader? Think about this for a few minutes. I’d like to read you the short opening chapter of a novel while you do, and then we’ll come back to that question.
Read opening chapter of Deception Point by Dan Brown.
Ever read a book you couldn’t finish? It happens to me occasionally. A recent book left me feeling meh. Despite beautiful writing, it was such a slow burn with so little payoff from page to page, that I eventually put it aside. On the other hand, I’ve read plenty of books that grab you from page one. Like the example I just read.
Every sentence pulls the reader in a little further. By the end, we have so many questions. Who did this? Why? Were they really military? Why not just shoot him? What was the deal with the radio? And of course we’re also horrified by what happened to an innocent human being as well as his dogs. We want answers, and so we’re going to keep reading!
Well, there you go. All you have to do is write a first chapter like that and you’ll wow your readers. They won’t be able to put your book down. Of course, it’s not quite that easy. You can’t just copy Dan Brown’s plot. And you might be writing in a completely different genre. So let’s go back to my initial question. What do YOU believe is the key to grabbing and holding a reader?
What I’m going to tell you is my take. Others may have a different route to the mountaintop. For today’s purposes, I’m going to boil it down to four points. Why four? Because there’s a better chance one will remember four than seventeen. And I think these four are pretty relevant.
Four Points
· Have a story to tell. (Elevator pitches) “That would make a great movie!”
· And then…?!? More please! Sentences. Your first sentence should make the reader want to read the second sentence. (Boring v Better)
· Reader must care. (About your characters.)
Background Weave - Let background unfold naturally – conversations, actions as plot develops
HAVE A STORY TO TELL
- It’s a coming of age tale about how I overcame some amazing adversity in my life to do incredible things.
- At age 29, my heart failed and I was given a transplant. Fifteen months later, I ran a marathon. This is my story.
- The story is set in the kingdom of Sprarklow where the powerful are free and wizards living in the forest assist a fledgling resistance.
- A young trickster who has pretended to have magical abilities is mistakenly made leader of the wizard rebellion in the forests surrounding the fortress city of Sparklow when the last real wizard dies.
An elevator pitch is similar to what you’ll find on the back of a lot of books. Just a few sentences or a couple brief paragraphs that create a thirst that the reader wants to quench. And the only way to do it is by reading your book.
What happens if you can’t come up with a good pitch? Well, maybe your story isn’t there yet. I once was given a story by a magazine editor who wanted my opinion on whether it was publishable. It was about a young girl who would climb into the treehouse in her backyard every day and play her violin. She practiced all the time and played beautifully. But that was it. The story never went anywhere. There was no conflict. Her life was idyllic. There was no need for her character to grow.
If the character doesn't change, the story hasn't happened yet. And if story is derived from real life, if story is just condensed version of life then life itself may be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another. ”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
2. And Then…?
You want to write a first sentence that makes your reader want to read the second sentence. And so on. Opening sentences and paragraphs that make the reader say, “This is good stuff.”
- The Book of Night by Holly Black
- The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul by Douglas Adams
- Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
The Weather Line
Boring Opening Line: “It was a bright and sunny day.”
Problem: Snorezilla. Granted, this sounds like a normal world just waiting to get taken down by a tragedy. But for the time being there’s nothing interesting about it. Perfection is never interesting. At least Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s “It was a dark and stormy night” gave us some interesting atmosphere.
Better Opening Line: “It was a bright and sunny day, just the kind of day I was supposed to die in.”
The Setting Line
Boring Opening Line: “The grocery store was busy today.”
Problem: This line does have a slight advantage over the previous one, since it offers a teensy hint that maybe something is out of kilter in this world. Why, after all, is the grocery store’s busyness more notable on this day than any other day? Still, with a dull opener like that, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to read on and discover there isn’t anything notable about this day.
Better Opening Line: “The grocery store was awfully busy for a ghost town.”
The Character Line
Boring Opening Line: “Jenna had just turned thirteen.”
Problem: Good for Jenna. Bad for readers. Kids turn thirteen all the time. Why is Jenna so special? Without a hint of why Jenna or her thirteenth year are so important, readers aren’t going to be very impressed.
Better Opening Line: “Jenna had just turned thirteen the day the planet exploded.”
The General Statement Line
Boring Opening Line: “Around here, strawberries don’t ripen until late spring.”
Problem: The only thing this opening line is making me want is a ripe strawberry. It’s certainly not making me want to read on. Readers either already know when strawberries are ripe, or they don’t care. What they care about is having their curiosity piqued, and common facts (or, worse, clichés) just aren’t very piquant.
Better Opening Line: “Around here, strawberries don’t ripen until late spring—but the Magic Wars had changed all that.”
The Dialogue Line
Boring Opening Line: “Hi, Steve. You got a second?”
Problem: This is a bad way to open a fictional conversation period. As an opening, a line like this is even more abysmal. We can only hope the caller has some scintillating reason to rob Steve of his second, but, honestly, this reader is a long way from convinced.
Better Opening Line: “Hi, Steve. Just wanted to tell you I killed your mother-in-law.”
Are you seeing the common factor in all the boring lines and the common factor in all the “better” lines? The boring lines fail to invite readers deeper in the story world. The improved lines, on the other hand, all create a jarring note that makes readers stop, think What—?, and read on to figure out what’s happening.
The opening line should be a puzzle piece that makes readers need to figure out the larger picture of which it’s a part. The opening line needs to make them curious. Why? Because curious readers are putty in your hands.
Above courtesy of KM Weiland
Reader must Care
· Huck Finn, the rich kid in town
· George Bailey – Travels the world, gets all the breaks, helps no one
· Harry Potter – Dudley?
· Katniss Everdeen – In it for herself/doesn’t help Rue
“If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is, you wouldn't remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.”
- Donald Miller
Do the Weave
Opening four paragraphs of Curse of the Phantom Queen by Rod Vick
Things are happening: There’s something dangerous racing towards her, a lot of people are going to suffer, and the main character will be powerless to stop it.
What do we know that’s not action? Our main character is a 17-year-old girl, she’s an empath, she has no magical powers, she’s wise, she comes from a family of helpers, she dresses in black, she’s in America, it’s her first time there, and whatever danger she will face is also in some way beautiful.
All of that was woven in without disrupting the flow of the narrative.
“Writers don't make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don't work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck's book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man's stupid words. And for this, as I said, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more.”
― Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality