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challenges your creative brain what else? The "voice" of the character is what attracts me to keep reading. If I can identify positively or negatively with the character; if the character affirms my own thoughts and fears about life; if the character tells his or her story in an unusual or entertaining way, I'm hooked.

Settings can be as close as my home town or as far away as Africa, but the author's pen must make them interesting. Great descriptions stay with the reader for a lifetime. I can still visualize the pasture where Black Beauty lived out his final days. I could draw a picture of Tara. I can see the caf, complete with fresh-baked pies, where Steinbeck set The Wayward Bus.

Story-telling can be linear or non-linear but the reader must be able to follow the story line. Every line should either develop character or move the story forward. Every situation should be paid off in the end. I don't want to read three pages up in the front about a seamstress who watches everyone pass by her window unless that activity plays into the conclusion of the book. The story can be told in first person, third person, or omniscience but first person brings me closer to the character.

The library is full of books about how to write a novel; internet websites give advice to writers and host forums for would-be novelists to share ideas. Writing conferences offer feedback from editors. But in the end, it comes back to the writer turning out a draft and then rewriting and rewriting until the story is honed to page-turning perfection.

A friend of mine whose second novel has just been published said the word she is looking for in reviews is "riveting." Riveting is what keeps a reader reading and riveting should be every writer's goal.

Learn more about this author, Cynthia Wall.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

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