Tag: getting attention

26 Tricks to Keep Readers Reading

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Image by Cayusa

Image by Cayusa

Unmet desire. That’s how author Steven James defines tension. Unmet desire drives your hero, drives the story, and drives the literary agent and the bookstore browser. The desire to know what happens next, the desire to feel something – this is the D in AIDA that leads to the A. Action.

The second A in AIDA


Action in this case is taking the time (and/or spending the money) to finish reading your book. Which means you have to create a page-turner. Something un-put-down-able.

Here’s the best advice I found.

 

The Mindset

Who cares?

James Scott Bell advises you to constantly ask yourself this question as you write. Adam Gidwitz suggests you picture someone you know who is in your target demographic. Someone with a relatively short attention span. Predict their reactions to each scene in your mind. Ask yourself what would make them turn the page.


The Structure

Elizabeth Sims has a brilliantly simple method for plotting an un-put-down-able book, which she calls the HCM method (HCM = Heart-Clutching Moments). List all the HCMs in your story – pivotal points like chases, escapes, kidnaps, revelations, and love at first sight. Then, think of more. Find opportunities to dramatize what you previously only summarized, or left out entirely.

Construct your story around these moments, rather than on a loosely-constructed storyline.

 

Milk it

Get the most out of every scene:

  • Put chapter breaks just before or just after HCMs to create cliffhangers
  • Carefully delay some action – like making Pandora argue with herself for hours before opening the box
  • Use surprising but logical plot twists. Victoria Lynn Schmidt notes the art is in making the reader wonder what could possibly happen next, without making them incredulous after it happens.

 

Don’t be a drag

Don’t let those pages get cold:

Steven James warns you to avoid these tension killers:

  • Background exposition
  • Repetition – use your fight scenes, explosions and tender moments sparingly
  • Waking up from the scary dream and realizing it was just a dream – is a deflation, not an escalation

Tips on dialogue from Elizabeth Sims and Jessica Page Morrell:

  • Avoid using dialogue for information dumps – cut it down as far as possible
  • Don’t use dialogue to rehash or comment on events – show those events instead
  • Do use dialogue for tension – power struggles, mind games, etc., wherein strong emotion runs underneath, but is never explicitly stated
  • Try blending dialogue with action – like during a car chase instead of over a quiet dinner
  • Dialogue should mostly be short sentences with lots of fragments and white space – avoid conversations that go on for pages

Plus, remember:

  • Perfect people are boring. Show readers your hero’s emotional needs, wounds and skeletons in the closet
  • Don’t waste time – begin the story at the last possible moment

Dig deeper

Most good stories have both an internal and an external struggle. Make sure you’re inside the hero’s head, wanting and fearing everything he wants and fears.

 

Give ‘em Hell

To keep raising the stakes, you have to train yourself to think of the worst possible ways to hurt your hero. What will cut him deepest? What will complicate matters most? You can’t save the life of a minor character just because you like them (or worse, because you don’t want to put the hero through the pain of losing them). Here are some ways to say “no more Mr. Nice Writer”:

From Jessica Page Morrell:

  • Introduce new characters, settings and circumstances that throw your hero off-balance
  • Throw a devastating curve ball just when the hero is about to accomplish his mission

From Elizabeth Sims:

  • Add an unpredictable character – someone who’s “not all there” and may do something dangerous at any moment

From James Scott Bell:

  • Can you raise the stakes with outside events, like oncoming war or a natural disaster?
  • What’s the worst thing that can happen in the hero’s professional life? Family life? Love life?
  • How are the people the hero cares for most effected by events?
  • Think from the villain’s perspective – how else can he thwart the hero?

 

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What the heck is AIDA? If you missed the original post, read it here.

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man reaching

How to make your book “un-put-down-able.”

The 21 Best Tips for Writing Your Opening Scene

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Photo by Kojarie Matiessa

Photo by Kojarie Matiessa

The first page is your make-or-break moment. The 250 words in which your reader – be it a literary agent or bookstore browser – decides to either turn the page or close the book forever.

For. Eh. Ver.

If you don’t emotionally engage your reader by page one, it’s over. This is the D in AIDA.


The D in AIDA


To find out how to hook and keep my readers (and your readers), I scoured the Internet for the best advice on first pages and first chapters. 

Here’s a comprehensive overview of the best advice I found. (If confused, click the source link for a more detailed explanation.)

 

First of All

From “Moonrat,” a recovering editorial assistant:

  • Assume your reader is in a terrible mood when they look at page one. This prospective agent has an endless stack of submissions to sift through, not to mention actual clients to attend to. You don’t have until page two.

 

The Do Nots

From Hilari Bell:

  • Don’t open with scenery
  • Don’t open with back story (aka “the data dump”)
  • Don’t open in the middle of too much action
  • Don’t open with more than three characters (three is already pushing it)

From various agents

  • Don’t open with a dream or a flashback
  • Don’t be flowery – minimize adjectives and adverbs
  • Don’t open with a cliché – (see examples in the post)

From Livia Blackburne:

  • Don’t start with weather unless it’s about meteorologists
  • Avoid having the character think about something just so you can tell the reader about it (that’s telling, not showing).

From Hallie Ephron:

  • Don’t start with a stolen prologue – you know, when your first page is boring, so you take the most exciting scene from the middle of the book, slap it at the beginning and call it the prologue
     

 

The Dos

From Anica Mrose Rissi:

From Nancy Kress:

  • Introduce the protagonist – focus on the individual, not just a type: what is different about this person?

From Tara Lazar:

  • Briefly set the scene, but be specific versus generic – what’s unique about this place?

From Hilari Bell:

  • Set the tone of the story – is it sarcastic, dark, whimsical, suspenseful?

From Elizabeth Sims:

  • Give it a mini plot – a first chapter so layered, concise, and complete that it feels like it could stand alone will make an awesome first chapter

From Nancy Kress:

  • Understand the promises you are making your readers – both emotional and intellectual – and be prepared to follow through (will the ending meet the expectations you encouraged your readers to have in the beginning?)

Deciding Where to Begin

From Elizabeth Sims:

  • Pick a scene you know you’re going to put in—even if you don’t know where. You might discover your Chapter One right there.
  • Ask “what will the protagonist be doing when we first meet him?”

From James Scott Bell:

  • Try cutting your current first scene and starting with the next one instead

 

Feeling overwhelmed?

Here’s a more structured look at how to compose your first pages, from Les Edgerton’s book, Hooked:

The Components of an Opening Scene

 

Primary (absolutely necessary):

  1. The inciting incident – event that creates the surface problem, setting the stage for the story-worthy problem
  2. The story-worthy problem – thing the character must solve by the end of the story
  3. The initial surface problem – result of the inciting incident, appears to be what the story is about, but isn’t
  4. The setup – a snapshot that will help the reader understand the next scene

 

Secondary (may not be necessary):

  1. Back story – include only what is absolutely necessary
  2. A stellar opening sentence – spend more time on this line than any other
  3. Language – use your best prose in the beginning
  4. Character – reveal a telling detail about your protagonist using action, not exposition
  5. Setting – ground your readers but don’t go overboard
  6. Foreshadowing – hint at action or obstacles to come

 

 

Test Your First Page

At Flogging the Quill, people submit their first pages to a “Flogometer,” where people read the page and vote to turn the page or not. Ray, who runs the site, also gives valuable feedback. It may take awhile to be featured if you submit, so I advise looking at the examples already posted there to see if any are similar to yours – and whether they made the cut.

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typewriter

This blogger scoured the web for the best advice on writing an opening scene.

20 tips for creating relatable – and lovable – protagonists

  By ,
Photo by Alex Brown

Photo by Alex Brown

Keep them reading. That’s our mission, right? And there’s nothing that can hook any reader faster and stronger than a protagonist they can relate to, like, and therefore care about. This is one half of the D in AIDA:

The D in AIDA

So what makes a character likeable?

I took inventory of the most likeable attributes of some of my favorite characters. I also borrowed some of the best advice from the Internet, and compiled it all here for your reading pleasure! Not all of this will apply to every character, but pick the right handful of traits for your hero, work two or three of them into your first page, and you’ll be well ahead of the average aspiring novelist.

Stuff that makes us connect with them

  • They enjoy things – especially the simple things. People who don’t enjoy anything are whiny. People who like things are fun to be around, both in real life and in books
  • They have flaws, but not unforgivable ones – flaws they must realize and overcome (Donald Maass writes about flaws and strengths here)
  • When they make bad choices, there are consequences – otherwise it’s a Mary Sue
  • They express universal truths – this doesn’t have to be deeply philosophical, just a little detail that everyone notices but nobody has put into words yet. Like how hard is it to drive in high heels (okay, maybe that one’s semiversal).
  • They want something deeply for personal reasons – this is the most important trait. They are in love. They are slaves. They’ve never met their real father. Etc. Even if your protagonist is a villain trying to take over the universe, he should have a personal reason for doing it (e.g., so that no one can ever hurt him again). We should feel this on the first page.

Stuff that’s just plain likeable

  • They have pets – especially if the pet is stupid, ugly, or smelly
  • They have the chance to be mean but aren’t – even characters who are jerks most of the time, but nice to one person (who must be weak or an underdog), or are nice when it matters most, are lovable (Blake Snyder calls this “saving the cat“)
  • They don’t realize how awesome they are – other characters like them better than they like themselves (this doesn’t mean they need to be totally insecure – just a little)

 

Stuff that makes us root for them

  • They are unlucky – Stanley Yelnats from Holes is unlucky but perpetually hopeful anyway, and it makes us love him
  • They defend the innocent – and/or stand up for the underdogs
  • They want to run away from danger, but don’t – the definition of courage
  • They are loyal – even a character who lies, cheats, and steals, but still sticks up for his friends, is likable

Book Country advises:

  • We don’t have to like what they do: we have to understand why they do it
  • Never let coincidence help a good character

Elise Broach adds:

  • They should be in love or in trouble (or both) on the first page
  • Avoid whiny, passive or cruel
  • Shoot for: spunk, persistence, courage, kindness, ingenuity, loyalty, humour
  • But be careful with spunk/sass – now getting overused
Neil Landau and Matt Frederick suggest these devices for getting to know your character:
  • Create memorable entrances – what would you notice about them meeting them the first time? Their charm, or clumsiness? Their laugh, or their uneasy silence?
  • Use props – what your character carries with him everywhere, or keeps in an honored place in his bedroom, can tell you a lot about him

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QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS: What protagonists do you connect with most? What makes you like them?

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Stay tuned: next week, we’ll talk about more stuff you need to include in the first pages.

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puppy dog

Ways to make your readers love your main character.

6 types of book titles that get noticed – and picked up

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While a cover has to grab your eye, it’s the title that has to make you pick up the book. So what makes a book title grab your attention?

On Goodreads, the social media site for readers, 1,052 people voted on the book titles they thought were the most eye-catching or unique. I’ve taken the top 100 titles and organized them by what makes them unique (many would fit in multiple categories, and some of the categories are just a shade different from one another, but I’ve arranged them in the interest of clarity and space).

If you can write a title that fits into two or more of these categories and is readable at a glance – you probably have a winner.

Surprising

These you pick up either to see what the heck they’re talking about, or to find out what crazy thing they’ll say next. This category is so popular, I broke it into subcategories!

– Words you’re surprised to see together

  • The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse
  • The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul
  • Still Life with Psychotic Squirrel
  • TheGuernseyLiterary and Potato Peel Society
  • The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
  • When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
  • The Devil Wears Prada
  • The Baby Jesus Butt Plug
  • So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
  • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
  • The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds
  • The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
  • Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Hitler the Cat Goes West
  • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
  • Nostradamus Ate My Hamster
  • Go-Go Girls of the Apocolypse
  • Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
  • Practical Demonkeeping
  • A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
  • You Suck (A Love Story)

– A surprising play on a common saying/well-known title

  • Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
  • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
  • Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea
  • Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
  • Women are from Venus, Men Are From Hell
  • How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
  • Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
  • English as a Second F***ing Language: How to Swear Effectively… (place)

 – Breaks rules…surprisingly

Some are unapologetically direct, some grammatically incorrect, some give away the ending, and some are just crass (a cheap trick I wouldn’t recommend).

  • Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank: A Slightly-Tarnished Southern Belle’s Words of Wisdom
  • Me Talk Pretty One Day
  • I Am America (And So Can You!)
  • Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off
  • Another Bull**** Night in Suck City
  • How To S*** In the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art
  • John Dies at the End
  • This is Not a Novel
  • F*** This Book
  • On Bull****
  • The Haunted Vagina
  • Dude, You’re a F**: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School
  • Don’t Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining: America’s Toughest Family Court Judge Speaks Out

Funny/Clever

If the title alone makes you chuckle, you’re likely to pick up the book.

  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  • Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
  • I Was Told There’d Be Cake
  • The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things
  • If You Can’t Live Without Me, Why Aren’t You Dead Yet?
  • I Still Miss My Man but My Aim is Getting Better
  • I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
  • In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash
  • Don’t Bend Over in the Garden, Granny, You Know Them Taters got Eyes
  • Since You’re Leaving Anyway, Take out the Trash
  • Even God is Single (So Stop Giving Me a Hard Time)
  • I Gave You My Heart, but You Sold It Online

 

Poetic

Just plain beautiful, but with a deeper meaning.

  • Something Wicked this Way Comes
  • Midnight in theGarden of Good and Evil
  • The Unbearable Lightness of Being
  • A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
  • To Kill a Mockingbird
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude
  • I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
  • Where the Wild Things Are
  • When You Are Engulfed in Flames
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God
  • A Confederacy of Dunces
  • A Thousand Splendid Suns
  • Neverwhere
  • A Clockwork Orange
  • The Grapes of Wrath
  • The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
  • The Man Who Was Thursday
  • The Silence of the Lambs
  • Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
  • The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
  • If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
  • The Sound and the Fury
  • For Whom the Bell Tolls
  • I Capture the Castle
  • All Quiet on the Western Front

 

Makes You Think

A unique way to look at things. Atlas Shrugged is a prime example – Atlas being the Greek god who holds up the world heavens (or holds the heavens and the earth apart, depending on which tradition you follow).

  • Atlas Shrugged
  • Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History
  • She Got up off the Couch; and Other Heroic acts from Mooreland,Indiana
  • A Wrinkle in Time

Intriguing

Specifies or implies something irresistibly interesting or thought-provoking. You have to know more.

  • The Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England: A Novel
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower
  • What to Say When You Talk to Yourself
  • Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

 

Whimsical

It simply sounds fun.

  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
  • The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead
  • Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
  • The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat & Other Clinical Tales
  • Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked and Spewed
  • The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cave
  • There’s a Wocket in My Pocket
  • Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
  • Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants

 

I can’t figure out why these are interesting (if you can, tell us in the comments)

  • Brave New World
  • Table 21
  • Reading Lolita in Tehran
  • To Live and Drink in L.A.
  • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: a Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

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What are your favorite titles? Tell us in the comments!

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P.S. My calendar next week looks like it got sneezed on by the Deadline Monster, so I can tell you right now I won’t be able to write about the D in AIDA until the week after. But stay tuned! We may do a little review of the I in AIDA.


5 tips for grabbing attention with your book cover

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The "A" in AIDA

It’s not that we judge books by their covers. But if you’re standing in a bookstore staring at a dozen photo-realistic illustrations next to one cartoony sketch, you’re gonna notice the cartoony sketch.

A great cover makes us look.

Will you have any control over your cover? If you self publish, yes. If you go the traditional route, it depends on your contract. Typically you’ll be allowed to voice your opinions, but the publisher makes the final decision. This can be a good or bad thing. On the one hand, their marketing department probably knows more about selling books than you do. On the other hand, you know more about your book.

So if you’re self-publishing, here are some cover design tips. If you’re going traditional, here, at least, are a few notes you may want to bring up when they ask for your opinion.

1. Keep it simple. Go to any bookstore and stare at the shelves for awhile and your eyes will start to burn from the colors and clutter. Those tired eyes will naturally gravitate towards negative space to get some rest. That’s why, often, the simpler your cover, the better. Think Google vs. Yahoo search.

2. Promote natural eye flow. Choose the sizes and colors of each element – title, byline, images, etc. – based on importance. Where does the eye fall first? Where does it go from there? Where does it end? Does the eye flow easily from one element to the next, or is there a war of elements all screaming for your attention at once?

3. Avoid photo realistic illustrations of people. Stand in the romance section and that’s almost all you’ll see. Shirtless guys with their arms around buxom blondes, long hair waving in the wind. Add a dragon for fantasy or laser guns for science fiction, but with or without the shirtless guy, you’ll see this pattern everywhere. If you are only targeting an audience that reads your genre exclusively, the typical cover may benefit you best. But if you want to appeal to a wider audience, pick something simpler, with greater contrast. Do you really think Twilight would have gotten so popular if it had looked like every other paranormal romance book out there?

4. Avoid overused fonts. Comic sans, for instance, or Papyrus. Check out a list of overused fonts here.

5. Aim for bold and iconic. Negative space with one or two contrasting colors will point you in the right direction. If it’s still recognizable when you squint at it (this advice per Karen Kavett), you may have a winner. Especially since online shoppers are only going to be looking at a thumbnail about a square-inch big.

Along those lines, consider also how the design can translate to other materials. Website. T-shirts. Think of your cover more as a signature or a logo rather than exclusively a glimpse at the scenery. Like the mockingjay pin on The Hunger Games, the puppet-master hand of The Godfather, the burning paper man of Fahrenheit 451, or the bent tree of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Just check out some of these titles for comparison:

Images from Amazon (book links below)

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What are some of your favorite book covers? Tell me in the comments!

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Stay tuned: next week, we talk book titles!

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Book links: Kiss Me Dead, Irish Moon, Yours Mine & Ours, Her Dark Angel, Bound in Darkness, Twilight, Fair Game, Shadow’s Fall, Game of Thrones