Saturday 28 September 2013

Five Tips for Writing a Page Turner - Lynne Garner


We all want to write a book that is reviewed as a page-turner. But how do you achieve this with a picture book? Well here are my five favourite tips:

One:
Make your reader fall in love with your character or at least care for them, even if they don't like them. If they don't care what happens then they'll not want to read to the end of the story.

Two:
End your page with a cliff-hanger. This is a device used time and again in television programmes. The writers know when the advert breaks are coming so they time cliff-hangers to happen just before a break. This ensures viewers will return. If it works for them it'll work for you.

Three:
Don't complete your sentence but end with three dots then finish the sentence on the next page. To increase the desire to turn the page you could finish the page with such words as 'and...' 'then...' or 'but...' 

Four:
Pose questions where the only way the reader can discover the answer is to turn that page.

Five:
Ensure each page moves the story forward. This could be answering a question, solving the cliff-hanger set on the previous page or it could be setting up the next cliff-hanger. 

Hopefully by using these tips your next story will be one an editor will love and will want to publish.

If you have any of your own favourite page-turner tips please do share them here.

1 comment:

Linda Strachan said...

Thanks Lynne. Page turners are so important, not just in picture books.
I especially like your first point, 'Make your reader fall in love with your character .... If they don't care what happens then they'll not want to read to the end of the story.'

In any story the characters are the reason we want to know what happens next!