Why a Novel Grabs Me

We’ve all had the experience of reading a novel and feeling caught up, not only in the story, but in the characters. Conversely, we’ve all read novels that are a chore to plow through and unless we feel some compulsion to finish what we started, we thrust them aside. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had more good reading experiences than bad or boring ones. Yes, it’s partly a matter of having an interest in one genre or another, but I’ve enjoyed novels that are not usually on my preferred landscape of reading.

And I’ve wondered why a novel can grab and hold me to the point where I’m sorry the read is coming to an end.

First, there’s the story itself. It just resonates with me on some profound level. It taps into something deep within me--perhaps the situation in which the protagonist finds himself, or the twists and turns of the plot manage to fire up my imagination and spur me on to the next page, and the next. It’s probably the child’s wish to know What happens next? I don’t think that should be underestimated.

But more than the plot (which can be crucial) is the construction of the characters populating the story. This is especially true about the main character(s). I have to care and feel for the protagonist. It must matter to me what happens in his or her life. If he feels fear, I must have the same feeling. If she feels lust, so must I. If he’s in a terrible jam, I want to sweat along with him. If she feels devastated about something, I want to understand and feel (to some lesser degree, perhaps) the same way. In other words, I want to identify with that person and be inside his or her head and heart while the person negotiates the rigors of the plotline.

Part of what I’m saying is that the novel must tap into some universal (yet personal) experience. It must reach out from the page and clutch onto some human commonality that exists for all of us. After all, we’re all different, but we’re all a bit the same, too. When a novel grabs and resonates with me, it’s usually because I can say to myself (or feel, without even articulating it) I’ve felt that way…I’ve felt exactly that way. When that happens, the author has grabbed me by the heart and throat and captured me.

Of course, there’s language and dialogue. I’ve always admired writers who can use gorgeous, yet unpretentious language when describing people, or a house, or landscape in the course of telling a story. It lends richness to the read, and the scenes come alive; I can see and hear and even smell what’s on the page.

Then there’s dialogue. When a writer’s dialogue is crisp and real, when you can actually hear the characters talking to each other, the novel really works. A novelist once said to me, “Dialogue isn’t really what people say to each other. It’s what people do to each other with words.” I think that’s very true. Each word spoken in a novel should connote action, or intention, or in some way add to the story’s narrative drive, its arc…its meaning.

I know that in the end, it’s a personal thing, a choice--people have preferences formed by their individual natures, their backgrounds, and by their cultures. But a good novel can transcend these constants, can grab you and drag you to another world--it can make you live there and experience what that world is all about--at least for the few hours you spend reading the novel.

That’s what grabs and holds me.