Photo by Stijn Swinnen on Unsplash
This is a comment I wrote during an edit:
Need more pull through – I read about half-way through, about 12 hours over two days (I read for pleasure faster, but doing mental edits while reading takes longer). I stopped last night at the start of chapter 10 (page 150 of 300). Waking up this morning, I didn’t feel the need to jump right back in. Yes, I had something else to do this morning – but still, nothing in my mind thought “what is happening next with these people.” The chapters don’t really end on cliffhangers and nothing makes you want to jump back to the character you were cut off from – a scream of “really, a POV switch NOW?!?” followed by “Oh, right I wanted to know this about this character, carry on writer”.
Pull-through is the mirror of the hook. The hook is at the beginning, drawing the reader into the story; pull-through is what keeps the reader in the story. That wonderful, disastrous entanglement keeping us engaged in the story long after we should be in bed. While you don’t need a “cliffhanger” at the end of every chapter, as a writer, you should be leaving enough IMMEDIATE questions that the reader feels if they read just one more page, one more paragraph, even one more sentence after the chapter ending, all will be revealed.
READING EXERCISE: Review your present work-in-progress for final paragraph pull-through at the end of chapters. Has the author made it easy to put the book down between chapters, or is it a struggle to shut the book every night? Comment below.
WRITING EXERCISE: Write a scene where the reader will end up screaming at you, “YOU ENDED IT THERE?!?” Again, this isn’t a cliffhanger. It shouldn’t be a huge buildup being left unanswered, but something simple where the reader had a pretty good expectation of what happens next, but they don’t know for certain. The difference between a protagonist getting shot while stepping into the shower, assailant unknown, versus the protagonist and their love interest stepping into the shower after just putting their two-year old into bed and they hear a sound at the bathroom door.
My attempt: Even when the trees are apart (6/23/2024). It’s a romance, obviously the two are getting together … but are they getting together right then?