Want to know how to write a page turner?
The kind that readers simply cannot put down?
There’s a technique to it. And it’s easy to learn.
Oddly enough, I learned this technique at a little woodworkers shop in Milwaukee. The entry to it was just in the middle of an alley, in the side of a big old warehouse.
It was actually the back room of a slightly larger shop selling brewing supplies to hobbiests. The guy who leased the space was illegally renting out his back storeroom to the woodworker.
I had heard about this guy from a friend who collects typewriters. Apparently the woodworker had been a typewriter repairman way back in the day. But now he was in his 90s and was selling off some of his old tools. Tyepwriters have very specialized tools.
When I went in, the place smelled really off. And I don’t mean strange. It the gaggy sweet smell of decay. I was sure the old man had died and I was going to find his body. If only.
What I found was much, much worse . . .
That’s the technique.
Bait: Spark interest in the reader’s mind with bait. (I want to learn this easy powerful technique Eric mentioned!) Usually a question.
Tease: Delay answering the question with details that seem to be leading somewhere, but you can’t quite figure out where. Show details that create more confusion (brewer hobbiests? typewriter repairman? woodworker? What does any of this have to do with the technique?)
Twist: Surprise with a little (or big) twist. Something unexpected. (bad smell? not a dead body but something worse?)
Release: Relieve the tension, but not all the way beause you put out some more bait.
So how does this translate to scenes in your novel?
Like everything else I’ve discussed, it’s a skill you learn through practice. And once you’ve practiced it, your creative mind will happily use it. This constant bait, tease, twist, release cycle can happen even in very mundane scenarios.
Imagine using it in a scene where your main character is going to meet his girlfriend for dinner where she’s going to tell him whether or not she’ll marry him.
The reader wants the answer. Most will be hoping for a particular answer.
But he doesn’t just sit down and she says “yes!”
You want the waiter to interrupt before the conversation can even get started. You want your hero gauging his girlfriend’s answer from her demeanor, her eyes, her outfit. You make him listen to her talking and talking and still not answering. And he starts to realize that if she’s giving this long preamble, the answer can’t be good.
And then he starts resenting her and berating himself. Because why didn’t he see that her wanting to meet him at a restaurant was a bad sign in the first place? She just wanted to avoid dealing with him in private. She’s here to let him down where his natural politeness will prevent him from making a scene.
OMG this is a disaster.
To make things worse a mariachi trio comes up and starts playing “Bésame Mucho.” It’s agony.
What’s she doing now? She’s getting down on one knee. He’s appalled. She’s mocking him.
NO! She’s apologizing for making him wait, for saying that she needed to think about it. She’s apologizing for ruining his proposal by not leaping into his arms and shouting yes, yes, yes. She’s apologizing for ruining the special moment that they would one day tell their children about.
She’s proposing to him, right now, to make the proposal memory unique and unforgettable. Something they’ll tell their children about with laughter and tears.
“Will you marry me?” she asked, eyes welling with tears.
He pulled her into his arms. He whispered his answer so that nobody but her could hear. “Yes. My dear, sweet love, yes!”
The people seated nearby applauded, and the cheers rose and spread through the restaraunt. But one woman, seated near to the kitchen did not clap, nor cheer, nor clink her wine glass with the back of her butter knife. . .
And so the cycle continues. You could write a book using only this technique, and it would work out pretty well.
So practice this idea. Take ten minutes and make up your version of the scene above and see where it leads. When your creative mind is engaged in this pattern, you will be dying to see what happens next.