Want To Know Moments

 Set up Want To Know Moments. 

Not what you want to know and not what your character wants to know. I'm talking about the reader.  You know that person on the other side of your writing. The one who actually reads what you wrote.We don't talk about the reader much but we should. I get the "I write for myself" argument. I do write for myself . But what I've learned as I've gone along is that I have to think about the reader too, especially when focusing on the storytelling side of things.

There are many ways to engage a reader BUT you must keep them  wanting to turn, no, excited to turn the page. Cool world building, complex characters, good language  are important but you need narrative momentum, you need the WANT TO KNOW MOMENTS, to keep the reader reading. It's a skill and an art to build a story. But creating want to know moments will go a long way.

Think of small things, big things, medium size things that you plant in your story that the reader will want answers about. Some of these might be fairly immediate. In the same chapter. Some might be a thing the reader wants to know through the whole novel. Your skill at setting these up and developing them, showing progress, and then giving resolution (THE PAYOFF) will be an enormous part of the success of your storytelling.

An example might be a relationship between two characters. Think of a simple Rom-Com. Two characters meet, they don't like each other or they do but regardless something gets in the way of their starting a relationship. We're all so familiar with this plot how can it ever work? Because the reader WANTS TO KNOW...How will it work? Specific skills at developing a relationship that in a Rom-Com we all know will work out is what I'm talking about. All along the way will be small WANT TO KNOWS and you, as a writer, will make the characters work through them. Then there's a satisfying moment. A first kiss. But it doesn't work out so the setback sets out another WANT TO KNOW MOMENT. They get back together...etc...You see— it's foreshadowing and resolution again and again to the ending.

Think Lord of the Rings. There's the big WANT TO KNOW...will Frodo be successful in destroying the ring... but think of all the other small WANT TO KNOWS that are set up and answered in the story.

You need many tools in your toolbox to write a novel. Understanding  the importance of WANT TO KNOW and learning how to foreshadow and build up to an answer, a resolution, is an important one.

Keep Writing,

Brian