Day 73

Editing – getting the reader invested

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There are two, possibly more, but two fundamental questions you have to ask yourself when you are reading through your work, and perhaps for the first time after finishing writing that first draft.

What am I saying?

What happens next for the characters?

Here’s the thing…

What your saying is what the reader wants to know, what sets the tone, what sets up the story. I like to throw readers in the deep right from the start, to give the reader a sense of who they’re going on the journey with.

In my opinion, a book is a journey and the more compelling you can make it, the more invested the reader will be.

Your ultimate aim: that the reader cannot put the book down. They just have to read a bit more to see what happens.

It is always going to be what happens next, whether our protagonist is hanging out of a helicopter trying to avoid being killed, or chasing a lead (or person), chasing a suspect or a person of interest, or just a red herring or entanglement.

And there is always that trope, the cliff hanger at the end of every chapter.