Writing Tip: Make Me Turn The Page!
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- 2/11/2010 |
- 10:00 am
One of your goals as a writer should be to get the reader to keep turning the page. If they're so involved in your story that it's hard to put down, you've done your job. Here is a quick tip to help you make that happen...
In my creative writing workshops, I'll often use an exercise where the students must write a brief story using four words that I supply, along with a sentence that I also give to them. The sentence might be something like, "I won't ever do that again!"
At least 75% of the time, students will end their story with the sentence. It almost seems natural, doesn't it?
Well, that's my point. You don't WANT your writing to seem like everyone else's, right? Think about this: What if you put that sentence at the beginning of your story. What does that do to it? If I started reading a story that opened with a character saying, "I won't ever do that again," I immediately have to know what it is.
Your mission should be to create interest, and to compel the reader to turn the page. Think about ways to inject that mystery, that sense of "I have to know what happens!" into your writing. In other words, don't always take the easy (and expected) way out. Now go write!
