5 More Ways to Engage Readers and Keep Them Turning Pages

No one wants to write a boring memoir. 

Several years ago I heard Steven Pressfield, the author of The War of Art, say that it matters less how many books an author sells, than how many copies of a book are actually read.

We’ve all bought books with great intentions only to never crack the spine. And a book that isn’t read can’t be recommended from one friend to another. Or from one book club to another. Getting readers to actually make it all the way through your book should be a writer’s number one priority

So last week I wrote about five ways to keep readers engaged and keep them turning pages. We’re not finished with this idea yet!

Here are five more ways to hook your readers and keep them interested

Please note that these tips are not things you should be worried about while writing the first, second or perhaps even the third draft of your book. When you’re doing that, just get the story out onto the page.

The tips below are for finessing the story once you’re working on making it suitable for an audience. If you’re not there yet, that’s totally fine. You’ll get there eventually. Give yourself the time and space to get your story out of your body and brain and then start working on things like making it a compelling and interesting read.

1. Show your warts

None of us are perfect. It’s really easy, however, to be tempted to gloss over the messy parts of life in a memoir. To smooth out the edges and present a socially acceptable or, at the very least, less offensive version of ourselves in a memoir.

Don’t be tempted to do that. That’s what social media is for!

Readers will resonate more with the ugly bits of your life that you share than with the glossy bits. 

I’m not suggesting you do a trauma dump in your book. But I am saying keep it real. Lean into the truth of your story, even if at times it makes you look less-than-great. We, as humans, connect with others when we see our own mistakes depicted in someone else’s life. 

2. Start at the climax

Whether it’s at the beginning of a chapter or the beginning of the book, starting at the climax is a compelling way to create an energy that pulls your readers through the book.

That is an opening that grabs the viewer by the throat and does not let go. We’re starting at the climax of an episode in a man’s life and we will stay tuned to find out how the heck he got himself into this position, even though we don’t know his name yet. 

With memoir particularly, I think this is an effective writing strategy when used skillfully. What was the turning point, or a major turning point, in the story you’re about to tell? Begin there, hook the reader, and then go back and explain how you ended up at that place.

You can do this in smaller ways as well, beginning a chapter at its climax and then backtracking to tell the reader how you go there.

3. Use humour

Your story is important and serious, especially to you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a morose tale for the reader.

Can you find some humourous moments in what you’re sharing? Can you sprinkle some levity in between the difficult moments?

No one’s life has just one note. We all have moments of comedy in the tragedy and vice versa. Look for places in your narrative where you can lighten the mood slightly. Let your readers know you have the depth and strength of character to see humour in situations when it’s appropriate. 

4. Mix up your use of dialogue and exposition

If you’ve got a chapter that is dialogue-heavy, filled with conversations between people and your recollection of discussions, mix things up and have the next chapter or section of the book be less dialogue-heavy.

5. Go deep

This ties in with the first tip on showing your warts. I was reading a memoir recently where the author did share her warts, but I also found she tended to skate past them. She would state what had happened and, for example, a mistake she’d made or something she’d done wrong, but I noticed a tendency to zip by these events pretty quickly. 

I found myself wanting to know more. How did she feel about the mistake she’d made? And what feelings were below those initial ones? What impact did the mistake have on her self-image or her relationship with the other person in the scene?

This may be more of a personal taste issue but I do think that as readers we connect with writers who are willing to share transparently about how they feel and how their lives are affected by the events in them. Look at how transparent writers like Anne Lamott and Elizabeth Gilbert are and how their readers respond to them. 

Your readers will connect with you if you’re real and honest with them, including letting them into your interior world as much as you are able and is appropriate. I’m not saying hang all your dirty laundry out at once with the expectation that this is a tactic to draw readers toward you. But I am saying share as you are able to and inject a little vulnerability into your work, if at all possible. Humans connect with human moments in art.

Listen, no one writes the perfect memoir.

But working on your memoir to make it compelling and readable will certainly help you to find more readers and connect with the ones you find.

_{RV image courtesy Megan Barber on Unsplash}

_{Thought bubble image courtesy Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash}