How Many Flaming Chainsaws Make a Novel?

Ever wonder what makes a book catch fire? What makes a book impossible to put down?

Flaming Chainsaws

I found this gem of an essay on storytelling with anunlikely title, The Dance of the Flaming Chainsaws, by Benjamin Percyand wanted to pass it along to my readers. Percy wanted to understand how The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which is 672 pages long, was so compulsively readable, so he read the book again with a pen and legal tablet, outlining the structure.

Percy says:

I paid particular...