How to make your story more Engaging to the Reader

[Androxine Vortex]

Anyone can put a bunch of words on some pages and call it a book. As authors, we need to try to make ours stand out from all the other ones in a store. What's interesting when it comes to writing is that you can take ten people and have them all write the same story but some will be more engaging and entertaining than others. Here's a little thread I want to start where we can share our ideas and tips for making stories all-around more engaging.
Here's my main 3 that I can think of:

1) World Immersion

Let the reader feel that they are really apart of your fictional setting. Don't just describe a large and gloomy castle and leave it at that! Why was that castle built? Who ruled there? Why is it deserted and in ruins now? Go into detail about your setting and what all is going on. I think this is why the Harry Potter series is so loved and cherished. I remember the first time reading the first novel (and seeing the first film) I fell in love with Hogwarts and the entire wizarding world. Rowling went into great detail to explain to the reader all the little fun facts about her world she created and with every little bit that she added, her audience fell that much more in love with it.

2) Depth

This sort of expands on what my first point, but they are different in their own ways. World Immersion deals with showing the reader this amazing and fantastic world you've created. Depth is about well, depth! Add some flavor to your characters, don't just make everything one color. Every character has a background, a motive, a personality. Now I'm not saying all of your characters have to be dynamic or anything like that but don't just label the hero as the "good guy" and the villain as the "bad guy." Give them their reasons. Maybe the antagonist has his/her beliefs because of something tragic that happened to them as a child. Maybe they truly view themselves as the hero. All of my favorite characters of fantasy literature have had a lot of depth put into them that I feel like I knew them as well as the author.

3) Interesting Plot

This one should be obvious. Plots can be straightforward sure, and I'm not saying your plot has to be dynamic and change every few pages, but make sure your story is interesting. The first thing a reader is going to do when they see your book (besides looking at the cover) is to read that little snippet of info on the back cover that tells them what your book is about. If it seems the slightest bit dull then chances are they'll put it back on the shelf, and that's a big red flag. This applies to your actual writing inside the pages too. Try to make your reader want to actually keep reading, add suspense and tension, and try to make it as entertaining as you possibly can. I look at my own plots that I have mapped out for my novels and don't get me wrong I love my plots to death and think they are the most interesting ones in the world (come on, we all do) but I've had times where I've read books with interesting plots but didn't feel motivated to keep reading and finish the story. You want your readers to want to finish your story because feel like they just can not put it down! That should be your goal when trying to make an entertaining plot.


So here's my main three ideas/tips for making an engaging novel. And notice how they all sort of blend together. They all work together like ingredients to a recipe or parts to a machine. If anyone here has any other advice please leave them in a post below. Happy writing!

 

[Chilari]

While I agree that immersion is important, I don't think it's a good idea to tell the reader the history of everything the characters come across.

Case in point: one world I've been writing in a lot recently has a city which a long time ago had a huge wall around it and a lot of nearby farmland. I know the history of this wall: first there was a ditch and earth embankment, then a wooden wall on top, then the stone wall was begun, but before it was completed the city made peace with the neighbour it was built to defend against. The stones got reused in building various other things - first a temple, then water and sewerage infrastructure, then later on as threats came from across the sea as shore forts. Further from the sea the stone was reused in building farm houses and boundary walls.

I know all this (and more) as far as it relates to the world's history. My characters don't. How are they supposed to know without rigorous written records and a thorough education system? And why do they need to know? One short story takes place in a farmhouse, the foundation and adjoining tower of which are build from the yellowish stone from the old wall. My main characters (magically and musically gifted twin sisters) don't need to know the history of the wall to practise their music in the tower and have no means to. Telling the reader would thus not be appropriate. In another story, characters pass through an immense gate that was part of this wall, but either side of it the wall is gone and the village just "inside" the gate is largely built from the stone. By describing what the character sees - this huge, out of place gateway devoid of walls either side standing over a small village - the depth of the world is implied. The reader senses there's some history here, that this gate used to be part of a large wall, but to elaborate further would distract from my characters' quest.

So while I agree that the setting should have some depth, some history behind it, I don't agree that the reader needs to be told all of it. Merely stating what the characters see where the fact of historical events is obvious gives the reader the sense of depth, but if it isn't relevant to the story and doesn't add anything, it shouldn't be there.

I would also add relatable characters to the list. If the reader doesn't care about the lead characters and what they want, they won't care about the story. The characters should drive the plot - the results of their decisions should be obvious and important in the plot. They shouldn't be sitting in the train carriage watching the landscape go past, and nor should they be up front shovelling the coal. They shouldn't be on a train at all, because that involves tracks and you can't do much about your direction when you're driving on tracks. They should be driving a monster truck.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

No you misunderstood I don't mean that you should tell the reader everything about your characters or places but don't make them too grey. I just meant to add some flavor to them. Yeah don't write an entire chapter about everythings background that's a bit much

 

[wordwalker]

They shouldn't be sitting in the train carriage watching the landscape go past, and nor should they be up front shovelling the coal. They shouldn't be on a train at all, because that involves tracks and you can't do much about your direction when you're driving on tracks. They should be driving a monster truck.

Nutshell.

My contribution would be, No Way Out. That is, work out what choices the characters have so the reader can get to know why they're going over the wall instead of through the gate-- and that crawling through the sewer would be safer still but they don't have the time.

(I added the last option to show that it synergizes with the Monster Truck point, in that there should rarely be literally no other choice; show most choices as bad ideas to highlight the decision that's left and the all-important point it makes about the character. Hmm, a better name for this might be Just the Lady or the Tiger.)

Working through this gives you most of the realism a story needs (if you also catch when the "good" options can't work either); in fact it's a good guide for how much detail to give, trying to emphasize facts that are tied to Why Do This. It also embodies suspense, if it's paced well, by taking the reader through the whole process.

--Androxine, if you want to say "interesting plot," what do you think makes it interesting? Chilari, are you saying driving the plot is the main key to making characters relatable?

 

[Roc]

Yeah good advice...but you forgot one section — characters. In fact, characters is probably the most important one to engage readers. So many novels with great plots are ruined because of terrible characters.

Also, another note, if there were solid ways to engage readers, then everyone would write amazing novels. Personal flavor engages people into a novel.

 

[BWFoster78]

Truthfully, I don't necessarily agree that any of the three ideas mentioned in the original post are needed or helpful in engaging the reader. I've said this before, and I'll probably say it again:

If you want to engage the reader, give the reader a relateable character displaying an emotional response to a tense situation. That statement incorporates the three most important points in creating engagement:

A relateable character
Emotion
Tension

If you give your reader that, you don't need a world, depth, or a plot at all (okay, probably exaggerating to some degree; it's hard to create tension and emotion without some kind of plot, but plot is the means instead of the end.)

 

[Chilari]

Chilari, are you saying driving the plot is the main key to making characters relatable?

No, but it is important to making the plot interesting: having relatable characters in the driving seat. You can have relatable characters sitting in a train carriage, sure, but that won't necessarily be an interesting plot. Similarly you can have boring characters driving the monster truck but that too will fall flat because either the boring characters will chose a boring path to drive the monster truck on (down the M6, in traffic, instead of cross country bouncing across streams and scaring ducks) or because you leave the reader not caring about where the character is driving them and lose tension and engagement as a result.

Basically, I think you need both: a relatable character who is driving a monster truck. Relatability is about making the reader care about the character; monster truck is about making the reader care about the plot. The reader has to care about both to be fully engaged with the story. A cool plot with lots of twists is empty without a strong relatable character, like a Michael Bay film - it might look cool and fill the time enjoyably enough, but is easily forgotten and has no real impact. A deep character swept along on the wave, a character who is relatable but passive, leaves you with a story that doesn't feel like it's important, like a story being told to you by your friend about their cousin's holiday: second hand.

Don't get me wrong: outside events that the main character doesn't have a hand in can be a major part of the story. Say the story of a Jewish family fleeing Poland through France during WWII, German army hot on their heels or perhaps even already occupying a French town when they get there. The family is partly carried along on the wave, but the story isn't about the German army's occupation of France and concentration camps and trenches, it's about how this Jewish family survives - what decisions they make in order to escape detection and how those decisions impact their ability to survive. Say the father suggests one path and the mother a different one. The family goes with the mother's suggestion, and they end up getting split up when they reach a town just as it gets invaded. What would have happened if they'd gone the other route? Maybe we find out, maybe we don't, but you can see here how the decision they make changes their chances of survival.

The story thus can have larger events than the protagonist can imagine being a driving force behind going on - like a war or a political movement or a natural disaster. But if the story is about that event more than it is about how the character(s) react to and make decisions in light of that event, it will not be as compelling.

As for how to make a character relatable, that involves several factors, but boiled down to basics the character should have something they want to achieve and a reason they want to achieve it which can be morally justified. That doesn't mean the goal or motivation has to be moral, just that the reader must be able to understand and to a degree sympathise with the character's moral justification. Look at the TV show Dexter for example: it's a show about a serial killer, and he's the protagonist. He kills people, and the audience wants him to succeed because of the way his character has been made relatable. Dexter isn't like most of us: he doesn't have the same emotional range as the rest of us, so theoretically he should be relatable, but he is because we understand his motivations. He kills because he enjoys it and because he is psychologically damaged and to a degree addicted to it, which isn't a relatable feature at all, but the people he kills are those for whom the judicial system has failed, people who are rapists, murderers, human traffickers, paedophiles. The bottom of the barrel, the scum of the earth, and he is killing them and making the world a better place. We can understand that. We can sympathise with the sentiment, we can cheer Dexter on because of his justifications.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Truthfully, I don't necessarily agree that any of the three ideas mentioned in the original post are needed or helpful in engaging the reader. I've said this before, and I'll probably say it again:

If you want to engage the reader, give the reader a relateable character displaying an emotional response to a tense situation. That statement incorporates the three most important points in creating engagement:

A relateable character
Emotion
Tension

If you give your reader that, you don't need a world, depth, or a plot at all (okay, probably exaggerating to some degree; it's hard to create tension and emotion without some kind of plot, but plot is the means instead of the end.)

I agree with BWF that these are the most important elements. To me the best way to achieve these points are through building sympathetic characters (with some exceptions) and the use of concrete, sensual description to portray the POV like we are right there with them. Description, done properly, can enhance an emotional reaction & increase our connection to characters at the same time.

Tension should always be ramping up, for each POV character, through every sentence, scene, paragraph, chapter, & story. Some may feel that it's okay to take pause in the buildup of tension. I wouldn't agree. I don't want to ease the tension build-up until the story's conclusion.

 

[BWFoster78]

Tension should always be ramping up, for each POV character, through every sentence, scene, paragraph, chapter, & story. Some may feel that it's okay to take pause in the buildup of tension. I wouldn't agree. I don't want to ease the tension build-up until the story's conclusion.

That's not the type of story that I prefer but to each his own.

To me the best way to achieve these points are through building sympathetic characters (with some exceptions) and the use of concrete, sensual description to portray the POV like we are right there with them. Description, done properly, can enhance an emotional reaction & increase our connection to characters at the same time.

There are a lot of techniques the improve engagement. I've been planning a "Brian W. Foster's Top 12 Techniques to Make Your Writing More Engaging" (really, I have been), but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'll step up my efforts.

 

[Ireth]

Hmm. Looking back at the train vs. monster truck analogy, what about this: the heroes in my WIP Summer's Pawn are shoved onto a train by the villains, and they struggle at all times to derail the train before it reaches the bomb at the end of the tracks. Just stopping the train and fleeing isn't an option, because there are gunmen lined up all along the tracks to shoot them if they try. In the end they do reach the bomb, but they defuse it before it can get to zero.

 

[Steerpike]

I'll vote the top 5 as:

1) Characters
2) Plot/story
3) Characters
4) Characters
5) Setting

Just my personal preferences. Although if someone comes up with a really awesome setting/concept, that one can spring up the list. Things like Ring World, or the wolf-like pack sapients of Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep, and so on. But the books where the setting/concept is really what entices me are few and far between.

 

[WyrdMystic]

I don't think they can be rated like that. I think it's a finally balanced ecosystem. Ready for an analogy? No? Tough!

There is more red clover on farms that have cats.

If you figure out the connection on your own - kudos. Otherwise here it goes - Cats eat the mice who eat the bees that pollinate the flowers.

The connection - without plot, without characterisation, without setting you only have part of a story. Each one is dependant on another - without setting how can you have characters? Without plot who cares about the characters? Without characters what's the point?

 

[BWFoster78]

The connection - without plot, without characterisation, without setting you only have part of a story. Each one is dependant on another - without setting how can you have characters? Without plot who cares about the characters? Without characters what's the point?

I don't agree with you here.

1. I think you can have a complete story without any setting whatsoever. Yes, your characters have to exist somewhere even if that somewhere is no where, but you can have a story without ever defining that setting.
2. I agree that you can't have characters without a plot or a plot without characters, but I think you can make statements about the overall engagement produced by a character-driven story vs. a plot-driven one. I think that, overall, (and obviously you can find examples of good stories on each side) you'll find it easier to create an engaging story by being more character driven.

 

[Steerpike]

I'm with Brian on #1.

And mostly on #2, though...plot without characters. Hmmm. That might make an interesting challenge

 

[BWFoster78]

I'm with Brian on #1.

And mostly on #2, though...plot without characters. Hmmm. That might make an interesting challenge

Yeah, I thought about that one a minute before writing it but couldn't see how to do it.

 

[WyrdMystic]

I of course, disagree. Without setting your characters are flat - whether its a historical setting or anything - there can be no depth of character if there is no history or motivation, both of which are born through experience and environment (and yes I count no environemtn as a setting).

Whether a story is character driven or plot driven is irrelevant - both have characters and plot its just which one has the emphasis that is the question.

 

[Steerpike]

I of course, disagree. Without setting your characters are flat - whether its a historical setting or anything - there can be no depth of character if there is no history or motivation, both of which are born through experience and environment.

Ever watched the classic movie 12 Angry Men? Essentially character-driven. Takes place mostly in one non-descript room, except for a tiny bit at the beginning and end.

 

[Steerpike]

Yeah, I thought about that one a minute before writing it but couldn't see how to do it.

Me either...but maybe if I dwell on it a bit

 

[BWFoster78]

The connection - without plot, without characterisation, without setting you only have part of a story. Each one is dependant on another - without setting how can you have characters? Without plot who cares about the characters? Without characters what's the point?

Characters are flat without emotion, not setting. I think I could develop an engaging story without a setting, but I'm pretty sure that someone, somewhere has. Maybe Steerpike has a reference for you.

Whether a story is character driven or plot driven is irrelevant - both have characters and plot its just which one has the emphasis that is the question.

I think it's of the utmost relevance. I think a lot of beginning authors go wrong trying to let the plot drive their story instead of the characters. Again, it can be done, but it's a much harder row to hoe.

 

[BWFoster78]

Ever watched the classic movie 12 Angry Men? Essentially character-driven. Takes place mostly in one non-descript room, except for a tiny bit at the beginning and end.

Good example, but one could claim that the situation is informed by the setting.

Surely there's a good story out there somewhere that literally has no setting. This would make a good challenge!