Writing a novel is preparing to engage in a fight, not with the reader but with the reader’s attention. Readers are continuously pulled away from your writing. Their cell rings. They get a text message. They just received a deluge of emails. Somebody is knocking on the door. They are sleepy. They feel guilty for taking time reading your book. This confluence of daily events, works to pull the reader away from your book. If the book is not a magnet for the reader’s attention, these distractions are going to succeed. So how do you keep the reader engaged in your book?
One way to do it is to make the book a positive emotional experience, However, it should also be compelling. Give your scenes energy.Writers have said that you end scenes with crises. However, you can’t end every scene in a crisis. A three hundred page book may have 40-50 scenes, Ending every scene in a crisis can make the crises themselves boring. reducing your book to an imitation of the Perils of Pauline, a 1914 silent movie in which there were regular predictable attempts to murder the heroine. It seems that even murder, when shown to the reader too often, can be a bore.
So, don’t strive to end each scene with crisis, but instead, end it with energy. While energy can be a crisis, it can also be mental energy, emotional energy, sexual energy, physical energy. But end the seat in such a way that the reader is compelled to turn the next page.
This is especially important in the first part of the book. Most every novel writer understands the importance of a hard hitting, gut grabbing first chapter. However, if the first chapter is attention grabbing, but is followed by a series of chapters that are emotional/energetic duds, then the reader’s going to put the book down. A spectacular first chapter of two or twelve or twenty pages is not going to pull the reader through a three hundred page book. Spectacular first chapters must be follow by emotionally powered scenes, pulling the reader through the book, compelling them to read chapter after chapter until they can’t put the book down. Certainly emails and phone calls can wait, but the book can’t.
I used to buy Tom Clancy’s first novels and read them throughout the weekend, forgetting work, eschewing chores. After all, there was always more work, but a Clancy novel came out infrequently.
Here’s an example from my first novel Saving Grace where Lindsey is just finishing a disappointing conversation with a recruiter.
“No, thanks.” Why would I want dessert after this appetite suppressant of a conversation, she wondered. “OK. I’ll skip it too. Maybe just some coffee. He thought for a moment. “The Centers for Disease Control are undergoing a disruptive reorganization right now. Maybe you’ll like it there, but people are leaving. In droves. And, the National Institute of Health’s role has shrunk as well. I think the ‘alphabet soup’s’ time of glory has come and gone. Too much work and not enough money.” A trace of sadness entered his voice as he pronounced the death of these organizations. “Oh,” she said. She slouched in her comfortable chair. “Welcome to twenty-first century science.” He looked straight at her. “I don’t know what to say to all this,” she said, as she shook her head. ”You’re telling me that I can either accept ‘academic-freedom lite’, and not get paid much for doing what I want, or I can get paid a lot for doing what I don’t like, right?” “No,” he replied, brushing off crumbs from the linen tablecloth. “What? I don’t understand,” Lindsey said, squinting. “You just said–” “I said that was the choice for most people,” Dramont said with a smile. “For you, Lindsey, there’s something special.”
The conversation is going downhill fast, but at the end of the chapter, a single statement injects new energy into it. What the something special? Here is an example from Catching Cold-Breakthrough.
Al, unable to keep his eyes from narrowing, believed he could actually feel his adrenal glands squeeze as he delivered his argument, a sharp sword through the belly of his opponent. “Your Honor,” Al said, “these earlier notes reflect the witness’s prior state of mind. Clearly, those writings provide a very different opinion than the onethat plaintiffs explored with him during the direct examination. I should be allowed to examine in detail how and why Doctor’s position changed, since that position is central to his testimony.” Al nodded to the judge. “That is all I ask: Why did the witness change his mind?” “Your Honor,” plaintiff’s counsel said. Al noted Bow Tie’s hands were behind his back. The man is still confident—so much the better. “You just can’t allow Mr. Sanus to go on a fishing expedition for poorly formed opinions, opinions that had been updated outside of and well before this litigation.” Al struggled not to smile at Bow Tie’s fatal mistake. Never tell this judge what she could not do. All Al had to do was sit back now and enjoy the show. “Mr. Petson,” the judge said, walking over to Bow Tie. “It is in my purview to either sustain or overrule your objection. Do you agree?” Petson stepped back so fast he tripped and almost fell. “Your Honor, I only meant—” Here comes the coup de grâce. Al leaned forward on the balls of his feet. “Then, Mr. Petson, I am prepared to overrule your objec—” “Your Honor, defense has no objection to withdrawing the witness’ notes and ending this line of inquiry.” What the hell? Who was that? Al swung to his left, noting that both the judge and Petson’s heads also turned to this new voice. Al’s mouth dropped. Jesus, no.
An attorney giving a devastating argument is distracted by a frightening sight. You have no idea what it is, except that it’s enough to distract him from his pleading before the court. What is it? You have to turn the page. Here’s another example from Catching Cold-Redemption An hour later, Breanna pulled into her apartment complex’s parking lot. A banged-up SUV sat in her assigned spot, motor still running. No matter though. As long as she didn’t have to clear snow to park, the accountant didn’t much care where she parked in the clean lot on this warm, clear day. “Hello,” the woman said, getting out of the dirty SUV. “I am an attorney.” Breanna watched the short woman, struggling with a bad limp, ache her way out of the car. “How can I help you?” “I was wondering if you needed assistance after the accident back there on 52.” Goodness. A genuine ambulance chaser—kind of. Breanna smiled. “Thank you, ma’am, but we are fine.” “No need to check your baby for one of those neck injuries?” “She was secure,” Breanna said, still smiling, “and as I said, we are fine.” “OK, well, anyway, here’s my card.” The woman struggled back into the SUV, threw it into gear, and backed out of the parking space. Cassie. Standing there, on the other side of where the banged-up SUV had been, the West Lafayette wind whipped the short brown hair across her face.
At the end of a drainingday, Breanna sees Cassie, a friend and her lifesaver who disappeared months ago, just standing there in a parking lot facing her. Where has she been? What does her new presence mean?
“Well, this is all phenomenal. I’m just trying to figure out how this enters into what it is that Jon has in mind to do.” “Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m going to rely on you for that, Kevin, because I’m not sure what it is he wants to do either.” “Well, he’s interested in understanding the chemical language the body speaks to itself.” He watched Ava think for just a few moments. “Yeah, yeah, you know, I never thought about things that way, but”—she shrugged—“it’s a good way to consider it.” “Well then,” she continued, “we build a molecular machine to discern the message of the protein and radio it back to headquarters.” Kevin said nothing, in awe of her ability to size up the conversation. “Yeah, yeah. I’m in. Yeah. Welcome to Arizona. Look.” Ava strained to see. “That looks like—” “Tumbleweed.” Ava clapped her hands. “Yeah. What’s this?” Driving slowly in the snow, they both looked right at a hill, sloping down from the highway. “Yeah, Kevin, what are they?” “Men with guns.”
A harmless conversation between two scientists ends with a new external threat. Who are they?
Energy is the page turner. Ask yourself as you prepare the scene, what energy is invoked by the scene.
