Skip to content

Andy Unedited

  • About Andy
  • Write Better

Andy Unedited

Exploring Books, Life, and Writing

One Way to Keep Readers Reading

August 9, 2013 by Andy Le Peau

With short attention spans growing shorter due to so many distractions from iPhones, social media and our own to-do lists, how do writers keep readers with them all the way to the end?

Using a narrative

i-686773c368dcaa61eb6d552ecc2a7a64-moby dick.jpeg

question to maintain interest throughout a book or short story is an effective and time-honored technique in fiction. Will Ahab kill the great white whale? Will Red Riding Hood escape the big bad wolf? The narrative question is established early and readers keep going because they want to find out how the narrative question will be answered.

But what about non-fiction? Narrative questions can be used effectively in that genre as well. For example, an author sets up an issue (trouble losing weight or difficulty in finding new customers or problems getting along with your mother-in-law) but doesn’t give the answer right away. Instead, the solution is revealed step by step throughout the book or article. In a book, the set-up may even take a chapter or two before the remedy is slowly laid out.

A narrative question can be effectively deployed within a chapter as well. Maybe the question is why losing weight is difficult when we are constantly surrounded by reminders of food in the media, in our home or at work. Here’s one possible structure.

After

i-06e2c250d34dbfdc9c468999c016a0f2-pie2.jpg

describing the problem people face, the author might discuss Solution A, but show why that doesn’t work. Then Solution B is considered, but that also fails. Likewise Solution C. Now readers are really ready for the answer that solves the problem. They are thinking, “If those three seemingly reasonable solutions don’t work, then what does?” They are motivated to know. Each chapter of Deep Church by Jim Belcher does this effectively.

When setting up the problem, it’s important not to build up a straw man that’s easy to knock down. Show the real difficulties and why it’s so hard. Give the very best arguments for the solutions that you nonetheless think ultimately fail. That will help your audience feel the tension and yearn more keenly for an answer, make your solution all that much more satisfying and keep them reading.

i-46c848d51589edf9f41535655cc43da9-freeimagesuksmall.gif

Post navigation

Previous Post:

News Flash! Zealot Isn’t News

Next Post:

Opening Salvo

2 Commments

  1. Stan Baldwin says:
    August 9, 2013 at 12:15 pm

    Really good stuff, Andy. Thanks

  2. Andy Le Peau says:
    August 9, 2013 at 12:43 pm

    Glad to do it.

Comments are closed.

My Books

Categories

Subscribe to Andy Unedited

Loading

Archives

Recent Posts

  • The Vaccine Hero
  • Still Amusing Ourselves to Death
  • An Editor’s Work
  • Two Visions of the Future
  • The Current Events Entertainment Industry

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
© 2021 Andy Unedited | WordPress Theme by Superbthemes