A Simple Trick to Keep Readers Turning the Pages

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Scene and chapter breaks are the most likely places to lose a reader. Are yours doing all they can to keep them reading?

On Monday, I talked about writing without chapters, and one of the benefits of that was choosing the best places to end my scenes and chapters. Today, I want to elaborate on that a bit.

When I was still new to writing, I thought a scene or a chapter was a contained bit of the story. It started, and then it wrapped up by the end. It might talk about what to do next, but that happened in the next chapter. I made the same mistakes pretty much every new writer does. I ended scenes with:
Characters going to bedCharacters setting off somewhereCharacters achieving a goal and being happy about itCharacters musing about the next day or the next taskObvious foreshadowing of doom (dum-dum-DUM!)Melodramatic cliffhangers with characters in trouble or shocking revelationsThere are ways to make every single one of these work, but more often than not, they aren’t strong endings and don’t provide the best hooks for enticing readers to turn the page.

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com