A Need to Write

Keeping Readers Hooked (Answer to CrystalCandel)

My question is how do you keep your readers hooked? --crystalcandel

First of all thank you!

Ways to hook your readers.

1) The biggest way to hook readers is to write the story you want. If you don't have any interest in the current biggest genre, and you only write a story in that genre because it's popular, your heart is not going to be in it.

Plus if you are trying to publish your novel, by the time you start to query agents the market for your book isn't going to be there.

Write the story you want to write, and your passion will bleed through, and your readers will see and experience it.

2) Your characters are your secret weapon. If you have flat, cliche characters readers will lose interest.

3) Point of View. For me, 1st Person POV draws me in the most. I prefer present tense. These two combined make me feel more in the story, because the story is happening now, and the story is more personal.

4) Antagonists can be my favorite characters to write. I love to hate, and I love to love them at the same time; take Loki from Thor for instance. No one is ever just bad. There's a reason they're the way they are. Why is that?

Make me fall in love with your villain and you'll have me hooked.

5) Cliffhangers. I love to write them. Readers hate them, but they have to know what happens so they come back for more.

To write a cliffhanger, you need to end with the unthinkable, which is what you should be writing. You don't want the readers to guess what happens next. That ruins the suspense.

Leave them with something that leaves them thinking, pulling their hair out, and gnaws away at them.

Lovely, right?

I hope that helped you, and thanks for your question!