by Simon Wright

Created on: January 24, 2009   Last Updated: October 04, 2011

Before considering what you can do to keep your reader interested in your novel, let's start by thinking about what attributes are present in the best novels that you've read? If we think about great page-turners the chance is that they have displayed a broadly similar range of traits that have helped them to stand out from the more average novels that you have had the misfortune to read. Some of these traits will probably have included well observed and engaging characters, sparkling dialogue, a consistent and well-paced tone of voice and perhaps also a degree of originality. Above all, the writer will have displayed well honed skills as a storyteller and part of this will be a keen eye for developing and maintaining suspense.

If we look at some of our very favourite novels, the danger exists that we may be daunted from even trying to match their authors' levels of writing excellence. Certainly, this is a feeling that I have had whilst reading the likes of Philip Pullman's Dark Materials series or any of Douglas Coupland's novels. However, we all have to start somewhere and I imagine that even the most accomplished of today's published authors went through a similar dilemma at some point in their budding careers.

Let's consider, then, some of the aspects that you can look to bring to your novel to increase its readability and, through that, also its attractiveness to a potential publisher or literary agent.

1. Well observed and engaging characters:

Even if you are writing a fantasy or sci fi novel and have characters that are non-human, you still need them to come across as plausible. By this, we mean that they should show consistency in the way they act and speak and the reader should be able to emphasize with their predicaments and understand what drives their behaviours. As well as this, they should be engaging, which means that you want to read more about them and care about their plight. You don't necessarily have to like a character. Think, for example, about Cruella de Vil from The hundred and one Dalmatians. She's just about as bad a baddie as you could get (given her desire to skin puppies) but is mesmerising (and very scary)! Whilst Cruella is an example of a memorable baddie, it's probably generally true that readers warm more to characters that they like. These don't need to be hugely heroic characters (we all warm to the cowardly Shaggy from Scooby Doo!) but they will have qualities that make us feel warmly towards them in some way.

It's probably

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