HOW TO STAY ALIVE AS A WRITER: DO THIS ONE THING
Scheherazade knew the secrets of storytelling that kept her alive for a thousand and one nights. Not bad for a storyteller. For any author wishing to weave tales as captivating as hers you’ve got to do this one thing.( I do not mean you don’t have to do many other things. Interesting characters, good use of language, fascinating setting and so on are needed.) BUT you need to do this one thing or those other important things won’t matter.
So, here was Scheherazade’s story:
King Shahryar, after being betrayed by his first wife, begins marrying a new woman each day and executing her the next morning. Talk about your terrible break-up leading to disfunction. Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, volunteers to marry the king. On their wedding night, she begins telling him a fascinating story but doesn't finish it, promising to continue the next night.
The king, curious to hear the end of the tale, postpones her execution. Scheherazade continues this pattern for 1,001 nights, telling interconnected stories and always leaving them unfinished at dawn. Her stories are so captivating that the king keeps sparing her life to hear more.
Over time, Scheherazade's wisdom, creativity, and storytelling prowess cause the king to fall in love with her. He eventually abandons his cruel practice and makes her his queen.
How do you get people to read your work? You make the king HAVE TO know what happens next.
SUSPENSE IS HOW YOU DO IT. SUSPENSE at the sentence level. SUSPENSE at the chapter level. SUSPENSE at the entire story of your novel. SUSPENSE at the entire story of your series if you’re writing a series.
I’ll go into more detail at a later date but let me just make it simple. YOU SET UP THE READER. YOU MAKE HIM/HER/THEM want questions answered and then you make them wait for those questions to be answered. In-between you give them little progressive steps toward an answer.
For example:
I wake up and my dog is missing.
(The steps in-between are the discovery by me of what has happened to my dog and ultimately who is responsible.)
END: I learn my neighbor three blocks over has my dog. My neighbor refuses to admit it is my dog.
P.S. This is not the end of the story. Or maybe it is. Up to you. Me, I’d want the next part of the story to be me deciding what to do about the situation and then doing it…
It’s that simple. Make the reader have to turn the page.
