By Tony Flood
Expert advice from Patrick Walsh of Publishing Push.was pased on by Anderida Writers chairman Tony Flood to members at their meeting on Tuesday, October 13th.
Patrick says the easiest way for authors to make their chapters hard to put down is by leaving an open question at the end of them.
An open question doesn’t have to be an actual question. It can simply be something the reader needs resolved.
For example:
A Weak ending:
Sarah closed the door behind her. It had been a difficult day, but tomorrow she would deal with everything.
The scene is finished and the reader has permission to stop.
A Stronger ending:
Sarah closed the door behind her. Then she noticed the photograph on the table. It hadn’t been there when she left.
Now the reader has a problem: Who put it there?
That’s the technique best-selling author Lee Child uses constantly. He doesn’t rely exclusively on enormous cliffhangers.
He creates small pieces of unresolved information that pull you from one sentence, paragraph or chapter into the next.
So here’s a useful editing exercise for writers: Go through your manuscript and look only at the final few lines of every chapter.
Ask: Does this close something or open something?
You’ll probably discover a few chapters that are accidentally telling the reader:This is a good place to put the book down.
Those are the ones worth rewriting.
Anderida Writers welcome guests to attend their meetings, the next being on Tuesday, November 17th at 7.15 pm at the Hydro Hotel, Eastbourne. Further details are available from Tony Flood at tflood04@yahoo.co.uk
Author Bio:
Award-winning writer Tony Flood spent most of his working life as a journalist, initially on local and regional papers and then on nationals. He was also editor of Football Monthly, Controller of Information at Sky Television and enjoyed a spell with The People before retiring in 2010.
More details and offers of books written by Tony Flood are available on two websites as follows:
https://tonyfloodauthor.wordpress.com/
http://www.fantasyadventurebooks.com
Tony is the chairman of Anderida Writers, Eastbourne, a group formed to support local authors. The group holds monthly meetings at which regular guests offer advice and support to members.
Contact Author:
Email: tflood04@yahoo.co.uk
