Writing Fiction: Storyline That Will Make Readers’ Hearts Beat Faster

To tell you the honest, I wouldn’t like to be in the skin of modern fiction book writers and authors. Why? Well, mainly because nowadays everyone is born with a pedigree in judging basically everything that pops up in libraries or on TV. Things have gone so far that the popular saying “you can’t satisfy everyone” has transformed in a more realistic “Try at least to make them pay attention”.
So, what should one come up with in order to be popular? How could you capture the imagination of people around you?

Answer Right Questions

To be more specific, answer 3 main questions – when? where? and who? It’s a classic move, that for some reason a lot of authors forget, which basically means – create the rules of your world and present them to your readers.
And not only that. Answer them in a way that no one ever thought it is possible. Or you can just name the character and place and audience will imagine the exact right period of time where your story takes place.
Once you complete this, in order to captivate the audience you will need to take that idea you have, shove it in a hypothetical washing machine and hit the spin cycle mode over and over again. Let people get close to the answer and then throw them out in the open sea once again. If possible, hit them with a thunderstorm as well.

Speed-date With Characters. Hate Them or Love Them.

As good as a plot might be, it will be worth nothing without the right characters. Your everyday Sarah or John that wakes up only to work an 8 hours shift, come home to a cozy dinner with their family and go to bed only to start all over again in the morning will certainly not hit the mark as you expect. People need someone to love. People need someone to hate. Heck, people even need someone who they can truly worry about. It’s up to you to choose, but you have to have strong, weird enough characters with clear desires and the black hole inside their chest that they want to fill in with something. Remember, some people love good guys, some love bad guys but everybody hates clichés. So in this case weirder = better. Your audience would likely want to read about the characters that might shock them(in any way possible) and will make their hearts beat faster. Maybe from fear.
“Every character should want something, even if it’s a glass of water” – Kurt Vonnergut. You as author need to understand the motivation of every person that has significant place in your fiction story. And you need to come up with some kind of solution on how to explain this motivation to readers. If you just can’t do it – don’t bring that character at all!
The fact is that no matter who you are, where you from, what you did you will always feel the need to choose sides and finding the representative character is very important.

Have Courage to Bring Big Themes

Not sure if you ever had the chance to see a soap opera from start to the end. On 300 episodes, two people fall in love, they get separated, one is abducted by aliens, colonizes an extinct planet, takes a cab right back to earth only to find that the love of his life has married with the cousin of his father`s mother who will eventually turn up as the lost evil twin brother of hers. Followed me? Probably not. What I’m trying to say is that modern authors are just afraid(for some reason) to think big and write about it. Who said eternal topics like fight between light and dark aren’t worth writing anymore? How about idea of one small person trying to change the world? Or simply make a statement – “We’re about to watch Rome burn”. It always was and always will be immortal stories that won’t leave anyone careless. A guy that probably knows something about writing, Chuck Palahniuk said that he tries to write something that people might not “enjoy” but will never forget. I kindly ask you to take this advice to your consideration.
Readers need adventure. They need unpredictable. They need goosebumps. And yes, YOU need big balls to dare to bring themes that will makes them feel like that.

Details matter

If my story takes place in airport in mid 60’s and about whole bunch of people who work there I may not spend a lot of time researching about specific terminology. Audience would get tired of reading about all kinds of tech stuff that they may not understand in my cyberpunk/criminal fiction story. Right? Wrong. Firstly, Arthur Hailey and Stieg Larson who wrote “Airport” and “Girl With Dragon Tattoo” would strongly argue with that. Secondly, nothing will push away the audience more than mistakes made by you while describing particular features or processes where deep knowledge of the field is required. On the contrary, average reader will likely become your fan if you present, for example the process of creating soap in details than jump into action all the time.

You see, unpredictable is captivating and captivating means interesting. And while transforming interest in an audience may not be a hard thing to accomplish, keeping the same level of interest can only be achieved by constantly keeping the fire alive. Your audience is a hungry monster that must constantly be fed with the newest and most exciting information that you can possibly come up with. Once these few ingredients we mentioned about are added to the pot and stirred correctly it is impossible not to hit the mark. One thing is for sure. Hope for captivating storylines will never be lost.