Wednesday's Writing Tip - Strategy, Enticing the reader with plot

Enticing readers to read the stories you've penned is an important strategy. Part of the way of doing this is to pose questions that when answered lead to another question always pointing to the end. Will the hero or heroine reach the first step toward obtaining their goal. This leads to the second step and to the third, Maybe even more. If they fail to reach one of these steps is there a reason, or has the goal changed a bit. Like people in real life, sometimes the initial goal isn't the real one. As this changes the reader is lured on to find the answer to the question.

The writer has the advantage here since he or she knows what the real object to the story is. Clues need to be fed into the story. There's nothing more infuriating than to read a story and find out the end has nothing that was promised in the beginning because there were no hints to what the real ending of the story. But the writer can't make the trail too easy to follow. I know I've read books where I knew what would happen before the story ended. In romances the given is the hero and heroine will connect and live happily ever after. One of my stories this isn't the case. While the hero and the heroine remain in love they aren't going to co-exist in the same place. Most of the readers found the clues that I sprinkled in showing this was to be the end. One reader missed a clue or two and was disappointed. So keeping the reader a bit off-balance is good. They will want to know what happens next.

Next week I'll post a bit more on this. Hopefully you will develop a strategy that will lead your readers onward to the end and to saying "of course that's the way the story should end.