Why you want the reader to delay the dusting

[John Dean]

Every writer is obsessed with keeping their reader engaged, and rightly so. That’s what keeps them turning the page.

But what allows you to do that? Well, I think that good writing works because it triggers responses in its readers.

I think writing works best when readers say ‘I have been in that situation, ‘I know someone like that’, ‘what a terrible thing to be faced with, I remember when…’ etc etc.

If readers feel like that, it means that they are being drawn into the story. They stand next to your characters, they fear for what is about to happen, they must know what is going to happen on the next page.

The big problem for a writer is if a reader does not really care what is happening, when they say ‘I note en passant that the main character is in danger but I’m not really minded to hang around to find out what happens, to be honest. Besides, I have just remembered that I was supposed to be doing some dusting…’

The best books persuade the reader that the housework can wait. If your reader feels part of the action, feels the rain on their face, senses the pounding of the character’s heart, jumps at every sound, then they are experiencing the sheer power of the writer.

That’s a terrific (and difficult) thing to achieve and the best way to do it, I find as a crime writer, is to go back to that idea of describing scenes which the reader may have experienced for themselves. That means understanding their inner fears – will they react to a lone figure in an empty street, or maybe a face at the window (my particular phobia) or perhaps being confronted by an angry person?

Trigger those responses makes your story real and you’ll keep them turning the page.

Keep safe, everyone.