The Novelry on Writing Podcast: 5 Secrets to Page-Turning Stories

In this episode of our podcast, The Novelry on Writing, we join writing coaches Melanie Conklin and Heather Webb for five brilliant yet simple and practical secrets to create page-turning stories that will keep your readers up at night. Read on for the episode transcript.

Every story should have mystery to a degree. And so one of the ways that I like to build that in is to give every single character in the book a secret.
—Melanie Conklin

Introduction 

[Melanie Conklin] Hi, I am Melanie Conklin. I’m an author of middle-grade fiction and also a writing coach at The Novelry. And I am here today with Heather Webb.

[Heather Webb] Hi, I am Heather Webb, and I am a USA Today bestselling author of historical fiction. And I’m also a coach for the historical fiction group at The Novelry.

[MC] Yes. And today we are here to talk about five tips to make your stories page-turners. We all want readers to be glued to our stories, right? It’s like the key. The author’s worst nightmare is someone putting down your book and walking away and never picking it up again. So it’s really kind of a core element of storytelling, you know, how to make that story be truly page-turning.

[HW] I think it’s even more important today because the way we read has changed so much with our cellphone devices. I mean, we all in social media, we have such a short attention span.

[MC] Yes.

[HW] So it’s really important, I think, to make your stories page-turning as much as possible.

[MC] For sure.

Tip No. 1: Yearning

[MC] So our first tip that we’re going to dive right into for making your story work that way is yearning. Having a sense of yearning in the book. You are going to talk about how that works between the character’s needs and wants.

[HW] When you’re opening a book, the first thing you want to do is connect to the main character and feel some sort of sympathy for them in some way, even if they’re not a particularly likable character. And you do this in a number of ways, but one of the ways is to establish a main goal for them that they just absolutely are dying to achieve. And this creates that sense of yearning, that sort of burn that pushes the story forward. Without that, you’re, you know, it’s going to be a little bit flat.

So, right off the bat, it’s really important to establish this goal for your main character. It’s also tied a lot to their emotional motivations. You know, what’s happened to them in the past. You know, as the book opens, there’s this wound that they carry with them. And part of that yearning is tied to that as well.

But what I find really fascinating is when you can play a bit with what this character so desperately wants isn’t necessarily what they need. And you don’t always have to write it that way, but it’s really interesting when you’re playing with different kinds of characters to add that layer in. It creates more struggle, more tension. And once again, you’re turning the pages trying to figure out, you know, how is this going to play out for this character?

[MC] I think that’s such a great tip because what I often see from writers is a struggle on that first page. Because they are trying to give that conclusion on the first page. They’ll, they’ll try to give: oh well, what my character really needs is this. And so try to tell us that on the first page. That doesn’t work.

What is really important to recognize is that your character wants something on the first page. Whether that is a cup of coffee or revenge on someone, or to solve a mystery. They want something. They might need something different, and that can change. And so we just need to start with them wanting anything, literally anything on that first page. It doesn’t have to be the main thing or the outcome of the story right from the first page. Especially in middle grade, you’ve got about three sentences to catch a reader. So you have to right away identify something that your character’s yearning for. And that gives them a reason to keep reading. Because they want to see if they get it.

[HW] Absolutely. Yeah.

[MC] Right?

Tip No. 2: Put a life on the line

[MC] Alright. Our second tip is to put a life on the line. So, this is a very plot- and stakes-oriented tip. When you think about it, our characters in the story, they change over the course of the story. So they start out one way and they end a different way. Because what happens in the story affects them as a person. And so what you really need is for the stakes in the story to be large enough to affect that change on your character. Because if the stakes don’t match how your character changes, it’s not going to seem authentic. You know, they have to have their back against the wall. They have to be forced to change in this way. And one of the ways to really raise those stakes is to put a life on the line.

Now, that can be literal, but it can also be metaphorical. It can be a social death that a character feels, which is often the case in middle grade. Often they’re fearing being ostracized by a friend group, which is social death. And so it’s just kind of tapping into that feeling of the stakes being that big, that important that it is a form of death for the character. And the sooner we tap into that, the more the reader is continuing to read to find out if they escape death. 

[HW] I think this is a great point, and I also would like to iterate that, you know, you can have multiple characters in a book with different versions of that. For example, my book that was out in February called Queens of London, I have four main characters and one of them is a boss of an all-girl gang.

[MC] Love it.

[HW] And, you know, her stakes are going to be different from one of my other characters who’s a 10-year-old on the run, versus my detective, my female detective who is desperately trying to establish a serious female presence at the Metropolitan Police. So you’ve got social death there, and then you also have real, very real peril for the 10-year-old, for example, who’s out on the streets and getting picked up by a gang. So, you can play with both within the same story and sort of play them off of each other. 

[MC] You could pile them all on there.

[HW] Put them all in there.

[MC] Just make it— Make it that much harder for your character. I think that often, you know, some writers will get the feedback that their story’s too quiet. You hear that?

[HW] Yep.

[MC] And that, that can be really frustrating because—quiet. What does that mean? I think it really comes back to this point of the stakes and having it seem that it is like having a life on the line. And sometimes that means adjusting your plot because you can say: okay, well, if this character is trying to solve a mystery in order to win a contest that’s not as exciting and not as high a stakes if they’re trying to solve a mystery to save someone’s life. You know, even if what they believe is saving someone’s life isn’t literally what’s happening, which can sometimes be the case in children’s literature, is that a lot of times you think it’s a bigger deal than it is, but to them it feels like a life on the line. So I just like to emphasize that because, with a quiet story, that’s the first thing I often suggest to writers, is: is there a way you can put a life on the line in this plot?

[HW] I think it’s harder to find those more social deaths. And like, for example, in Strangers in the Night, it’s a novel that I’ve written about Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra, and the stakes there, the life on the line, is about Frank establishing himself as this musician and being accepted by Hollywood and becoming this big star he so desperately wants, and it’s so closely tied to who he is as a person that it would absolutely devastate him as a human being to not reach this goal. And I think, so those sometimes could be a little harder to think about, but I think they’re—

[MC] Yep.

[HW] —definitely important.

[MC] For sure. My new book, Crushed, that just actually came out this week, is a middle grade that starts out with a girl who’s excited to get back to school. Because she wants to see her best friend. She hasn’t seen her best friend for an extended time because of some drama that happened with the best friend. And we don’t entirely know what happened there yet. And she’s just very fearful of losing her friend. And sure enough, when she gets back to school, things have changed and there’s distance and it’s immediately awkward. And this is her person. She does everything with her. So if she loses this friend, she has no friends, you know? And that is a situation that we all experienced during those years.

[HW] Absolutely.

[MC] And as adults too. But yeah, I really just emphasized that that would be really terrible. And so that really ups the stakes. 

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Tip No. 3: Pile on the trouble

[MC] For our third tip for making your story a page-turner, I have: piling on the trouble. And what I mean by piling on the trouble is thinking about the antagonistic forces in your story. A lot of times people think of a villain for their story. Here’s a very bad person who is causing all these bad things. Sure. That’s one layer you can have. But there are actually multiple ways to have antagonistic forces. And the more of them you use, the harder it gets and the more trouble for your character. And then that’s more problems to solve, more reasons to keep reading.

So the three areas that I always try to consider when I’m writing are:

• Man versus nature. So how can my setting and environment be an antagonistic force?
• Man versus man. So, again, that’s your villains or your characters who are antagonists.
• And then man versus self. Because often our worst enemy is ourselves.

[HW] Yeah, no, those are great tips. I was thinking about how in historical fiction, it sort of naturally, very often naturally, lends itself to these layers of antagonism because, especially if you’re writing about women in the past, you have this built-in societal issue, right? I mean, you’ve already got society working against you as an antagonistic force. But then, you know, say there’s something like a war, there’s that whole piece as well that is layered onto the limitations women have. And then, you know, versus the self, you know, that whole want-versus-need struggle. And then, you know, depending on what the actual plot is, you’re probably going to have a person as an antagonist as well. Whether it’s a mother or a friend that’s really a frenemy or, you know, whatever, it could be a lot of different things. But, yeah. 

[MC] Yeah.

[HW] So it very naturally lends itself to these layers of antagonism.

[MC] Because sometimes we see in stories, like, a story that has a villain but the villain is doing too much, you know, is causing the trouble in every single scene. And that just, it rings as inauthentic because it’s not the way it really works. Even a villain needs to take a nap every once in a while.

[HW] And I call them a ‘mwah-ha-ha’ villain. 

[MC] A ‘mwah-ha-ha’ villain, yes! A very over-the-top, cartoonish...

[HW] Yeah.

[MC] And that’ll make a reader bounce right out of the story because it doesn’t ring true. 

I like to do things like, in my first book, Counting Thyme, the girl, she has to move across the country for her little brother’s cancer treatment, to New York City. And she’s moved from a more suburban, relaxed environment to New York City. And she does not like the city, you know. And so the city is immediately an antagonist. And of course, by the end of the book, she has fallen in love with the city. Because that’s what happens when you live in New York. But she... She really, really doesn’t like it and feels like it is out to get her. And just adding that extra layer of stress really gives readers another way to empathize with her and to wonder how she’s going to get through it.

Even a villain needs to take a nap every once in a while.
—Melanie Conklin

Tip No. 4: Create mystery

[MC] So our fourth tip is one that I really enjoy to make your book a page-turner. Mystery is a huge element in being a page-turner. And you don’t have to write a mystery in order to have mystery in your story. Every story should have mystery to a degree. And so one of the ways that I like to build that in is to give every single character in the book a secret. And some of those secrets don’t even get revealed over the course of the book. Some of them do. Most of them end up affecting the plot. But when you start out from the beginning and go: what might this character be hiding? And you kind of have that note to yourself, it really gives a momentum there. It gives some unpredictability. And as those secrets are revealed, it really amps up the mystery and the reader has a lot of reasons to keep reading.

[HW] I love that. I don’t actually— I haven’t... I’m trying to think if I’ve actually built in secrets. I’m not sure that I have so much. 

[MC] You’ve got to make a list. You’ve got to make a list. Come up with something.

[HW] Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, my sort of mode is to look at layers of questions, story questions. And it’s funny, you—the way that you introduced this topic—because I’ve actually written an article called ‘Every Book is a Mystery, Even When It’s Not.’ And it’s all about this, about story questions and how you want layers of questions. You know, what’s the big central conflict? And then what are the questions that are tied to like the B plots and the C plots, the secondary characters?

And you don’t give us all that information up front. You know, you sort of tease it out over the arc of the story so that, again, you’re building tension. You know, readers want to know the answers to these questions. 

[MC] Like it can be something really simple, like that this person has a food allergy and they’re embarrassed. And again—children’s writer here, you know—and they’re embarrassed. They haven’t told people and they’re acting weird at lunch, and they, like, don’t eat that part of their lunch. And people are like, what’s going on? Or, you know, or they act really strangely. It just gives this little layer of information that makes the reader more interested. Because they’re wondering why. Why is this behavior happening? And eventually they find out what that little secret or story question is. I really like that.

Tip No. 5: Vulnerability

[MC] And for our fifth tip, our final tip, we are going to talk about vulnerability and how allowing your characters to be really, truly vulnerable with the reader makes the story a page-turner.

[HW] Yeah. I think, kind of along the lines of that busting the ‘mwah-ha-ha’ villain. 

[MC] Yeah.

[HW] It’s the same for a main character. You want to give them, show their layers of emotion. You know, there’s always an obvious emotion in a scene. You know, what’s the next layer down and what’s the layer underneath that? When you get down really deep, it gets to the heart of the matter, doesn’t it?

[MC] Yeah.

[HW] What comes with that sort of peeling back of the layers is a serious amount of vulnerability. And I think feeling vulnerable is hard. It’s hard. And you see, you know, you could put your main character in this position where they’re really struggling with opening themselves up in this way. And it, again, creates tension because you’re wondering: how are they going to handle this? How are they going to achieve their goal, this thing they so desperately want, while also being vulnerable? And you kind of want them to be, right? 

[MC] Yeah.

[HW] There’s a moment when that happens. Again, with Queens of London, Diamond Annie, my all-girl gang boss, wears knuckle dusters that are just all diamond rings on each finger. And she’s— 

[MC] That’s amazing.

[HW] She’s 5’ 9”, so in 1920, that meant she was a head taller than most of the men.

[MC] Wow.

[HW] I mean, she could wield a knife and did so artfully, like she was a force to be reckoned with, especially as the head of the gang. But, you know, this little 10-year-old comes along and suddenly it upends her life and the way that she views her girls. You know, she has to be a little bit vulnerable to help this kid along with other, you know, other situations in the book.

But I think you really love to see that, when a tough character— 

[MC] For sure. 

[HW] —opens up a bit and, you know, shows their sort of soft underbelly.

[MC] Yeah.

[HW] And the reason why they are like that, you know... 

[MC] That’s true.

[HW] ...she had an abusive father.

[MC] It helps you connect the dots.

[HW] It absolutely does. And she had a really horrible father. They were all, they were like a family of thieves. So you’ve immediately got this sympathy for her. And you can see why she’s so tough.

[MC] I have like 15 reasons to go read this book now. Thank you very much. I love it. 

I like when I’m drilling down into those layers of emotion, I always like to ask myself: what does my character feel ashamed of feeling right now? Like, what is it that they would—

[HW] That’s a great one. 

[MC] —not want to tell anybody? And always tell your reader that. I find that a lot of times in the manuscripts that I’ve read, the character’s hiding the ball, hiding their feelings a little too much. I always say you can hide facts, but don’t hide feelings from the reader. Let the reader hear those different layers, especially what they’re even ashamed to feel. Because in those moments is when we tap into our deepest humanity. And then when you’ve got the reader feels like a confidant for your character, then they’re in and they are going to keep turning those pages. They almost can’t turn away at that point because they feel seen and they feel like they see the character and that they have a relationship with them. And that’s a really special part of fiction. I really love that. And I think it’s even helped me learn to examine my own feelings more and understand what I’m doing in any given moment. 

Don’t give us all that information up front (...) tease it out over the arc of the story so that, again, you’re building tension... Readers want to know the answers to these questions.
—Heather Webb

[HW] Absolutely. I always say that writers are actually scientists of human behavior.

[MC] We’re all just therapy-ing ourselves.

[HW] We are. It’s like we’re therapy-ing ourselves and we’re watching other people and how they react to situations and what that means realistically in terms of a chain of events that happens after that. Yeah, I think that’s definitely a thing.

[MC] Exactly. And when we look at these tips, we’re breaking down what we know intuitively. You know, these are— People are glued to various real-life stories for these same factors. In fiction, we just study it, we break it apart so that we can make sure we execute it that way in the story too.

Well, it’s been super fun talking with you about this, Heather.

[HW] Yeah, thank you for having me!

[MC] I love hearing so much more about your books and these tips.

[HW] Likewise.

[MC] I think your tips for me will be really helpful too.

[HW] I’m like literally going to go take some notes after this.

[MC] I know. Me too. Alright. Thanks, everybody. Bye!

[HW] Thank you. Bye!

Closing words

[Louise Dean] Thank you for joining us today. We are so pleased to have you along for the writing journey and we hope to see you on another episode of The Novelry on Writing.

If you’d like to learn more, visit us at thenovelry.com. From first draft to finished manuscript, at The Novelry you’ll enjoy one-to-one coaching from bestselling authors, live writing classes with award-winning authors and literary agents, and you’ll work with a publishing editor all the way for submission to literary agents toward a publishing deal.

All writers learn from other writers, even the greats. Write your novel in good company. Join us at The Novelry.

We’ll show you how to start, coax your story into shape, and cheer you on to type The End.

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