Reading is Not Involvement… Is It?

This one is not exactly a RANT, not exactly a TIP, nor is it exactly a TRAP. Consider this more of an open question to all of you. No, to all of US.

Getting people to read our work is what it’s all about, right? Well? Isn’t it?

…or is there more? Certainly we want our readers to LIKE our work. We want them to look for our names in the stacks… to come back again and again to drink from our various Word Wells. Yes? Certainly!

Fine. How do we do that? What’s the trick? IS there a trick? I sure hope so.

Consider this: you’ve found yourself pulled into a book or a story. Something about it is holding your interest. It might be the characters, it could be the scene or the scenario, it could be the expectation of a twist at the end… any of these–and more!–could draw you, again and again, into a writer’s work.

But what is it about a book, a movie, a TV show that really gets you?

There is the emotional catch, the one that makes tears of fear, love, or relief spring to your eyes. Of course this is more and more manipulative… some of us emotional train-wrecks get teary at a well-turned 30-second commercial. Sigh.

For me, it’s when in the middle of the story a character does something… something that you as an omniscient reader just KNOW is going to get them into trouble. You know the type of situation: Scary baddie around the corner, a mistake that the love interest will misunderstand, and speaking of misunderstandings, the conversation where two important characters are talking at cross-purpose and do not know it.

It’s at that moment when you say to your book, story or poem, “NO! Don’t do that! You’ll be sorry!”

It is at that moment when you have been bought and paid for by the writer. That’s the hook. That’s the magic.

And, oh, oh, oh, how I want to learn how to pull the reader in like that.

How about you? Any ideas how to do it?

I’m all ears.

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