Books break the shackles of time.—Carl Sagan
You know what the best kind of book to write is? The kind that gets little rips in the bottoms of the pages from readers turning the pages too fast.
On every single page:
- Make something exciting happen.
Not just anything—no tooth-brushing —but something really unexpected and fascinating. Plot twists!
You know what nobody wants to read? A novel about people being boring. Maybe a big figure in New York publishing can write a novel in which the entire first chapter is taken up by a boring character failing to do anything about being boring. And maybe they will even be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for it. But you are not best friends with the New York City cocktail crowd, so you’re not going to win any Tavern-on-the-Green popularity contests.
You’re going to have to write a novel that’s actually thrilling and entertaining in order to get attention. A novel your reader is not going to have to force themself to read just so they can form an opinion on it because, I don’t know, it’s their job or something. A novel your reader reads because they can’t help themself. And because they can’t help calling up everyone they know and bending the ear of everyone they don’t know about how those guys simply won’t be able to help themselves either.
A novel that’s helplessly addictive.
- Give one of your main characters something brilliant, insightful, hilarious, heart-breaking, or completely baffling to say or do or see happening.
Does it take you five pages to get through a transition scene, just characters sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee and trading meaningless banter until Jeb comes back from the barn? Do your characters have a tendency to say, “Hi! How was it?” “Fine. How was yours?” and exchange lots of information about their kids that has nothing to do with your plot? Do their arguments about side issues tend to go on for-freaking-ever?
Something needs to happen on every page to make your reader’s eyes open wider. She said what? He did what? There was a what? What came through the door?
Weave in a new subplot thread (this is what subplots are for—to give you material to keep surprising your reader), mention a significant detail, write a fabulous line of dialog, give someone an exciting action, or introduce a fascinating technical subject. John D. MacDonald teaches the reader how to live on a boat off the Florida coast. Dorothy Gilman teaches random retirement-age New Jersey housewife expertise adapted for espionage. John Gardner teaches cocktail party shenanigans of ancient Greece.
Then subtly shape the page around that eye-opener.
- Give your other main character a completely unexpected response.
And just when your reader thinks they know what you’re driving at, throw them off-balance by linking it back to the interaction of the characters.
He said what in response? She took it how? The what caused what to happen?
It’s not just that Travis McGee knows how to fix a broken sump-pump and gets himself heck of filthy doing it for a friend. It’s that his friend’s face is grey with fear when he comes in to check on McGee’s progress. It’s not just that Mrs. Pollifax knows what can be accomplished with a bobby pin and a seriously rebellious attitude. It’s that, even though she succeeds, the people she needs to escape come back early. It’s not just that Agathon gets drunk and plays hanky-panky with the wrong political opponent’s wife. It’s that when he does he discovers she’s got a secret agenda.
Every choice, on every single page, turns out differently from what you’ve lead your reader to believe. Surprise!
- Give your reader an experience they don’t want to forget.
This is why exotic thrillers are so popular, so some really incredibly lame authors continue to make huge money with impossibly limp stories. Experiences.
If you happen to know a lot about living someplace other than where your target audience lives, that’s wonderful. Do your research and organize your notes. Meet lots of interesting people and watch them carefully to learn what makes them tick. Then on every page, make it detailed. Make it authentic. Make it real.
But if you happen to live pretty much exactly the same life as your reader, that’s still wonderful. Think long and hard about what it’s like to live that way. Go around taking lots of notes about it. Interview your friends about what it’s like for them. Stay up late at night drawing unexpected links between your experience of it and your friends’ experiences, links you’ve never seen before, links nobody but you could ever notice.
Then on every page, make it detailed. Make it unexpected. Make it authentic. Make it different from what your reader thinks it is.
Every single page: make it real.
- End the page with something to make your reader curious.
Now, you ought to notice something about these ways to make your novel addictive: it’s a whole lot to pack into a single page. Why, if you did all this on every single page, you’d never have room for anything else! None of the other stuff you’ve written, none of the extra description, the unimportant actions, the insignificant dialog, the explanatory exposition, the filler. . .
Yep, there it is. The lightbulb.
And you ought to notice something else about all this, too: each one of these ways either pushes the reader away (what just happened? why would that character react like that?), or pulls the reader in (that’s amazing that character did that! I love this experience!).
However, at the bottom of the page you don’t want your reader satiated, satisfied, sighing with fulfillment. No, you certainly do not. That all goes on the very last page. After satiation, you know. . .you’re done.
For every single page leading up to that last one, you need your reader desperate to satisfy their curiosity.
Where is all this heading? What are these characters all about? Why does the weaving in-&-out of the subplot threads feel so threatening, so promising, so intriguing, so inevitable? Push-pull. Push-pull. What’s your POINT?
That curiosity is why they simply can’t stop themselves from turning the page.
Helpless addiction.