How to Catch Your Reader’s Eye: 4 Tips to Keep Them Reading.

There are a lot of things to think about when you write. What are you writing? What are your characters like? What is your entire plot line?

Yeah, all big and good things to think about, but here comes the big question….will your reader even get to your second chapter?

It’s one thing to have a catchy title, and another thing to have a catchy book. I can’t tell you how many times I have read the first five pages in a book, never to read it again. There just wasn’t enough in these books to keep my mind interested.

But how do you keep a reader interested? How do you get them hooked on those words, and have them finish the book? How do you provide the things needed for the reader to share this book with others?

Here are five things that I have utilized in my own writing, but have also experienced with other great books.

Tip #1: Write a Memorable First Line

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” – A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” – The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

These are two lines that I am sure most of you know extremely well. These are opening lines of some pretty great novels. They got you hooked, and for some of them, they live on over 100 years later. There’s a great list of the classics which you can find here.

So, how do you come up with this line?

I have no clue.

Unfortunately, only you can come up with this. It took me a long time to come up with how to write that perfect first page of my novel. Even then, I have edited parts of it.

“Today begins an adventure. Here is my first day in this new role, my role of captain. We are setting off to seek new lands and to keep these waters safe. I leave you, my wife and children behind in Waterman Bay, but I keep these treasures with me. My daughter cried as I left, my dear little Felicity.”

And who knows, this might not even be the final version of my first line. The most important thing is to test it out on people. See what they think, and not just super supportive husbands. Ask friends and more distant family. Unless you have brutally honest family members, then sure. Ask them.

Tip #2: Create Relatable Characters

I love creating characters. Most of the time, I come up with my stories by first coming up with new and fun characters. I have a couple of ways of doing this.

1. Create a Character Sheet
2. Reference Back to Character Sheet Often

I have character sheets for each of my major characters. I used these pages to help build up my protagonist from a two-dimensional character, to a fully developed character. This helps me focus intently on each person, and make sure that they are the best that they can be. Kinda like writing a bio about yourself.

That is how I make my characters relatable. I write down all of their fears, their wants, their mannerisms. I reference back to these sheets often in my writing, just to make sure that I am keeping up with how they would act in a specific situation. I also update it when I have a plot point that may make an attitude change, or a shift in the person’s personality.

Tip #3: Make a Strong Villain

I use this same character sheet strategy when it comes to creating my villains. It is extremely easy to make a weak villain. In my first manuscript that I ever wrote, I have this issue. That is why it is on the back-burner while I work on Princess of Waterman Bay. 

So, how do you write a strong villain?

1. Give them human wants
2. Don’t always make it a teary story

And this next one I think is really important:

3. Make sure, that if the book was written from their point of view, that they would be the good guy in their own story

Perhaps in the next week or two, I will lay out the villain in my story for you. Show you how I grew him from a flat character who just wanted power, to someone who really believed he was doing the right thing. If that is something that you, my readers, would like to see?

Tip #4: Write a Good Plot-line

This pretty much goes without saying, but your story has to be written well, and it needs to be interesting. If your story doesn’t have an interesting, or at least a relatable plot, the reader isn’t going to keep going. I have read a couple of books that started out great, but then the story just wasn’t good enough for me to keep going.

How to you prevent this from happening?

I plot down every single thing I want to happen in my story, and then I make sure it all flows together. You want to make sure your novel makes sense, and that the story is exciting and at least somewhat relatable.

Also, try to avoid your typical story-lines. You know the ones, the epic love story, the zero to hero story. If you do write this kind of story, it has got to be different than every other one out there. I have read so many different versions of the same story, and I wanted to make sure that mine is different. Hopefully, this means that it is unique and will keep my readers interested!

So, there you have it. A few ideas to get you started as you begin writing or editing your novels. Also, a few reminders to myself as I continue this journey of editing my novel.

Challenge, try reading a bad book all the way through. Is it a really boring book? Or just a poorly written one? I have read a couple, and I am glad that I did. It helped me as a writer. Now, I can keep up with these problems, and use what I learned from it to make my novel better.

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Sources: American Book Review