A writer's tip: The Element of Addiction
Fellow writers, thank you once more for answering another one of my prompts. The question was: What makes a book so addicting that it is hard to put down?
Here is a summarized list of the answers I received:
-Fascinating and believable characters
-A believable, fresh, and well-written storyline
-A gripping and unpredictable story
These are great ideas. So, now, how do we put these into our story? How do we make our reading an excellent page-turner? Here are some suggestions:
Develop your character: There are so many resources online to guide you through this, and I highly suggest that you seek those out. If you know your character, then how that character acts in the story will feel natural to both the writer and the reader.
Start off with a BANG! The beginning of your story should be shocking or intriguing. Get us hooked from the first sentence, so we can’t help but keep on reading. This means that you might want to refrain from opening up with a sentence like “The spring air was cool and refreshing to my face as I took a stroll through the park.”
Don’t give it all away. There should always be something…lingering…in your story. Perhaps it’s the ever present possibility of the hero/heroine being in danger. Or maybe there’s an unanswered question that drives the story along. Either way, just always have some sort of conflict throughout the book that has yet to be solved or finished.
Check for originality. I believe it is okay to have some elements of your story be slightly similarto another story. But only slightly. You should see if your story brings in any new or original concepts. Add something fresh, and don’t just repeat what others have done (not only plagiarism but also cliché).
That is all for now, fellow writers! Until next time, Happy Writing!