Podcast 21 Hook your readers (1/2)
What makes a reader keep reading? In this workshop I did with Kalin Nenov of the Human Library, we try to answer the question: why do people finish reading books?
It’s strange or new
Rising stakes (The Dreseden Files)
The character changes
The character is sympathetic and the reader can identify (unless you want the reader to continue in the hopes that the character will die or be punished)
Wish fulfillment (Django Unchained)
A lesson (but be careful not to be too preachy or trivial)
Curiosity (as in mysteries: who did it? or in FSF: how does this world work?)(The Chronicles of Amber)(Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency)
Interest in what will happen next
Humor and fun
Romance (Jane Austen‘s books, which are also funny and, since they take place in a different world, evocative of curiosity)
Excitement (emotional intensity)
Education (after you finish it, you look at the world in a different way)
Morals (that you agree with)
Guilty pleasures like Harry Potter, Area 51, Twilight, Trueblood, and Fragment
Note: My microphone wasn’t always good enough to pick up people in the audience, so you’ll hear me ask questions and then seem to answer them myself after short pause. I am not actually talking to myself.
The Kite Runner
