How To Get Your Readers to Keep Reading
Lesson from "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling
Want to engage your readers?
It’s simple: Create questions in their minds that make them NEED to keep reading to discover the answers.
The questions can be answered:
Within the chapter
Within the book
Within the series (if applicable)
The more questions created, the more your readers will be engaged.
It’s best to create questions as early as possible in your story to hook readers.
🚨 Remember: All questions must be answered!
This technique isn’t a trick— you have to deliver.
If you create questions that go unanswered, all you’ll do is anger your readers.
Every setup must have a payoff. Even if it’s at the end of the series.
Why were the Harry Potter books so incredibly popular?
My theory is that readers wanted the answers to questions created in the expertly-crafted first chapter of the initial installment, The Sorcerer’s Stone.
These questions relate to the murder of Harry’s parents:
Why did Voldemort want to kill Harry?
How did Harry survive?
Who is Voldemort?
These questions are the focus of the later installments in the series.
And all of the questions are answered.
The Harry Potter series is not about the individual stories from book to book; it’s about discovering the answers to the questions created in the minds of readers during the opening pages of the very first chapter of the first book.
The Sorcerer’s Stone even concludes with another tease to this greater mystery of Voldemort, with Harry asking, “But why would he want to kill me in the first place?”
Dumbledore answers by hinting at reasons that readers won’t not fully understand until the final pages of the seventh book:
“Alas, the first thing you ask me, I cannot tell you. Not today. Not now. You will know, one day... put it from your mind for now, Harry. When you are older… I know you hate to hear this… when you are ready, you will know.”
It’s almost like Dumbledore is speaking directly to the reader and saying to be patient, the answers you’re looking for will come.
J.K. Rowling was able to hold interest throughout the subsequent adventures because she created questions readers NEEDED the answers to.
Want more writing techniques from the first Harry Potter book? 🦉⚡
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