Making the reader finish

[Rob_Royale]

Well there's finishing a story and finishing during a story. Both are worthy goals.

The best thing you can do is just create realistic and engaging characters and put them in exciting situations. I also think plausibility has a lot to do with it. If the story doesn't feel like it could happen, it feels more like a Jeff Foxworthy sketch. "There I was, tied to the bed. She walked in with a saddle and a set of jumper cables!"

If you can do that, and avoid the pitfalls of the initial backstory info-dump, I'd say you have a good chance of making readers finish in at least one of those two ways.

wendy553 about 1 month ago
Hell of a good story.
I had to replace the batteries in my toys!

 

[ThatNewGuy]

Assuming that the reader has some idea of what to expect from the category, title and description, how do we hold their attention until the end,

A good twist/reveal can also be a big help.

I don't mean a "wait, you mean the whole time it was a dream?"-style twist that comes out of left field and feels gimmicky. I mean a reveal for which you've carefully planted seeds that, when harvested, place character motivations and actions in an entirely new light. "Oh, that's why he did that" or "So when she said such-and-such, she meant..."

Art of Deception and Abandoned have big reveals in the middle and Art of Deception: Light and Shadow has a twist about three-quarters of the way through. All three are among my best in terms of view-to-vote ratios.

If you can surprise and delight a reader in the middle of a story, they'll probably stick around to find out if there's anything else they didn't see coming.

 

[ThatNewGuy]

Sometimes the way a story is structured compels you to keep reading. For a terrific example, read The Wasp of St. Judith's by @Bramblethorn.

It's got a great hook: "It's funny, the things I've forgotten. I can't remember what Mel looked like."

The opening scene begins with the narrator lamenting his fading memory. The scene ends with a direct address to the reader: "...the whole thing starts to melt away like a snowflake held too long in my fingers. So all I can give you is this collection of patches; it's up to you to decide how they fit together."

Right away, you've got me. The rest of the story is a patchwork quilt of memories strung together in short scenes. Questions linger just below the surface. Who is Mel? What happened between them? How reliable is the narrator?

Now and then, the narrator sets aside his recollections and returns to the present: "But that was much later. Just writing it down now so I don't forget. It's important that I come back to that." It's a clever narrative device that reminds the reader of the present struggle the narrator is experiencing. It feels immediate. Urgent.

The story is also a great example of creating/sustaining/building an ominous tone that compels the reader to keep going, even if it's with one eye shut. As @joy_of_cooking says in the most recent comment on the story: "I love how you build up the creepiness in layers, until it all falls into place with the very last sentence." That's a wonderful way to put it, and much more concise than what I've tried to do!

Establishing a "timer" early in the story can also keep the reader engaged throughout. It serves as a regular reminder of the stakes.

• Marty has to get back to the future before the photo of his family fades. Every time he looks at the photo, we feel that sense of urgency along with him.
• A common trope in romance films is that the love interest has to win the girl/boy before they walk down the aisle or step onto that plane to start a new life with the wrong person.
• The Wasp of St. Judith's also sets a timer in the opening scene: "I want to write this down before I forget more than I already have." Will the narrator succeed? Will we as a reader learn enough to piece things together before his memory slips away? I don't know! But I know I want to find out.

I'd love to hear from others about specific stories they've read that kept them hooked, and how those stories accomplished that feat.

 

[Cagivagurl]

I just checked my story stats, and I have about 1082k views with 14.5k votes. This is spread across 63 stories, ranging from 181k views with 3k views (60:1) to 834 views with 36 votes (23:1). Overall, the view-to-vote ratio is 75:1.

Most people quote a rates of about 90:1 to 100:1. If so, I must be doing something right. Particularly if we take this as an indication of how likely a reader is to finish a story.

So I'm sorry to disappoint all you statisticians, but this is actually a thread about getting readers to keep reading.

We're forever discussing ways to get people to click on our stories, and of course that's the first step. Without the click, there's no reader, no vote, no comment, no disturbing email about how the story reminded the the reader of what they did to their mother when they had to share the guest bedroom.

But once we've got the click, what then? Assuming that the reader has some idea of what to expect from the category, title and description, how do we hold their attention until the end, when they wipe their brow/eyes/fingers [delete as appropriate] and leave a vote and perhaps even a comment?

Two of my high view count stories that skew higher than my average view-to-vote count most likely put readers off quite quickly. One is 2P POV, the other warns about a twist halfway through the story (the blackmailed student turns out to be trans and blackmails the professor). I think we can chalk those up on the side of "don't try this at home".

But how about some positive advice? Something more concrete than "I just try to write an engaging story." Sure, we all do that. But what do you do to engage your reader? Instead of just shrugging and muttering "dunno", take a moment and think about your writing style, or your approach to characters and plot, or setting the mood, or whatever.

Remember, there are no wrong answers. Except shrugging and muttering "dunno".

(I'll link to this thread in the other thread about the craft of writing.)

How to get readers to read...
Apart from the title and tags, there's not much you can do. Try to find a title that explains the story. Back that up with appropriate tags... (Something I am hopeless at) That should get the readers attention at least...
Following step 1, The story has to capture my attention right from the outset. For me, it must ask a question that makes me stay longer, because I need to know how it turns out... The story absolutely must have a good plot... Lovable characters, interesting dialogue. It has to make me laugh... Cry... Feel... It has to hold my attention.
Next, it has to keep hooking me in... The opening chapters offered something to make me turn the page, but. To get me to the end, it has to keep grabbing me.
Stirring my emotions, if it fails to do so, I bail...
Above everything, it must be good storytelling. I don't care about sex... Not what I read for. I need to be entertained, yes, I like it to be erotic, not pornographic... I already know the technical aspects.
I'll forgive poor grammar, so long as it's understandable...
Make me love one of your characters, I don't expect them to be perfect, none of us are. I do however expect them to be believable, relatable, and their actions have to support their beliefs...
Dialogue, early in the story include conversation. Reveal your story, your thoughts through dialogue. Personally, I detest info dumps, and report like story lines...
Give me information through dialogue...
Draw me in quickly, or lose me.
The answer to your question... Tell a good story... write interesting characters, give me intrigue, give me something... Make me feel...

Those are merely my thoughts. I do not dare to presume I know anything about writing. This is simply my opinion as a reader..

Cagivagurl

 

[MelissaBaby]

As I have read the many excellent replies on this thread I have come to better formulate my own thoughts on the question.

My conclusion is that, while engaging narratives and plot twists and the like certainly help keep the reader interested till the end, there is one factor that overrides all else. You have to give them compelling characters that they don’t want to let go off.

I’ve posted in other discussions that I firmly believe that you have to know more about your characters than you tell the readers. You should always strive to leave them wanting to know more. That is what will keep them reading.

 

[yowser]

As I have read the many excellent replies on this thread I have come to better formulate my own thoughts on the question.

My conclusion is that, while engaging narratives and plot twists and the like certainly help keep the reader interested till the end, there is one factor that overrides all else. You have to give them compelling characters that they don’t want to let go off.

I’ve posted in other discussions that I firmly believe that you have to know more about your characters than you tell the readers. You should always strive to leave them wanting to know more. That is what will keep them reading.

Agreed. At the beginning of a story (movie, etc.) the reader has a pile of questions. Who is this person? What do they want? How will they go about getting it? Or learning something if they don't get it?

Only thing I will add is that it should be like a first (or early) date. One question leads to another. I didn't know you scuba dived! What was that like? Which leads to wanting to know more. Is the scuba diving a sign of daring? Or curiosity? What else do you have hidden in your portfolio?

You can't wait until the next date to pose further questions. The drip feed. Parceling out hints and clues to behavior and traits, as a reader it is always nice to see these play out teasingly, something else hidden in reserve. What's next? Read on...

 

[Gamblnluck]

I guess the failure was on my part at not making it ambiguous (or interesting) enough.

No, don't challenge the reader directly. If I read that, my first reaction would be, the author wants to either see a defense his story conclusion or is planning to write an alternate ending. Let the story stand.

The same goes with leaving the story open-ended for somebody else to continue. Usually those stories get rated poorly and the comments are variations of FTDS!! (finish the damn story).
Again write the story. If it is engaging and has plausible characters, you will generally get several to hypothesize where the story should go if you left it too open or went in a different direction than the reader thought.

 

[Gamblnluck]

I’ve posted in other discussions that I firmly believe that you have to know more about your characters than you tell the readers. You should always strive to leave them wanting to know more. That is what will keep them reading.

Along a similar line. I am helping a new author with a story. He has an idea how he sees his characters. I told him to not drop his description into a 'resume'. Instead filter it in with actions as he goes along. That includes mainly mental and emotional facets.
At the same time, make the person consistent. His actions should follow the personality you gave him.
You can't state the man is genius and then walk around totally oblivious to the world. He has to at least see his portion of it.
A story today had a man whose wife was successful in hiding her affair for a year. He had no clue.Neither did any of several of her friends. Then he decided to cheat on her with those friends. His wife was oblivious to his actions over the next year. (Not that she didn;t care what he did which would have been plausible.)
Comments called it out. It was still a decent story but could have been better because of that.

 

[designatedvictim]

So I'm sorry to disappoint all you statisticians, but this is actually a thread about getting readers to keep reading.

Bummer...

My views/votes ratios across my 7 chapters/stories varies from about 75:1 to 200:1, with my most-voted, most-viewed piece settling in at an almost constant 157:1 in the last two-thirds of the time since it went up.

Aside from those parts that have numbers that are too-low to be really representative, comments across all parts are pretty steady at something like 3000:1.

In my case, the Really Big Mistake I made was not having completely finished my 'tent pole,' The Long Weekend, before beginning to publish it here.

I've posted about 87K words of it, so far.

I figured I'd have plenty of time to whip off the missing 'connecting-tissue' of the story quickly and get them out at a decent pace.

I hate to admit that the dearth of comments and views in the later parts (yeah, I know multi-parts' views drop off per chapter) has kinda sapped my energy to work on it more.

It's been six months since the last part was posted and while I did get some really good feedback from another AH Denizen, I just haven't gotten back to it.

I have another 40K+ words already in-hand, but there are... gaps. Scenes that need inserting. My dreaded placeholder [Insert Scene].

 

[Cagivagurl]

Agreed. At the beginning of a story (movie, etc.) the reader has a pile of questions. Who is this person? What do they want? How will they go about getting it? Or learning something if they don't get it?

Only thing I will add is that it should be like a first (or early) date. One question leads to another. I didn't know you scuba dived! What was that like? Which leads to wanting to know more. Is the scuba diving a sign of daring? Or curiosity? What else do you have hidden in your portfolio?

You can't wait until the next date to pose further questions. The drip feed. Parceling out hints and clues to behavior and traits, as a reader it is always nice to see these play out teasingly, something else hidden in reserve. What's next? Read on...

You say the readers have questions...
Only if you ask them... Your plot has to be interesting enough to draw. As Melissa said above, your characters have to offer up enough to make me as a reader stay the course...
There's not one magical solution. It is a mixture of all of them... How do readers find out about your characters??? Dialogue, inner monologue releasing their thoughts... You have the power to rope in me the reader, but it has to be through the tools available...
Feed me just enough to make me seek out more by turning the page...
As a reader I need enough to build an image of the characters in my mind... I'm going to give them a voice if you've interested me enough...
But you have to give them personalities... Kind, cruel, cold, welcoming, alluring... Am I going to love them or hate them...
Make me feel something...

Just the thoughts of an avid reader... Not an expert....

Cagivagurl

 

[MrPixel]

I just wish there was a way other than voting to confirm if a reader made it all the way to the end. I know from my own reading habits here I will click out of a story if it isn't my cup o' tea - typically about the fifth paragraph - but it will have been recorded as a "read".

Cases in point are my latest. 3400 reads, 23 votes. 148:1. One posted five weeks ago, 6460 reads, 19 votes. 340:1. Yikes. So, again... how many of those "reads" were folks who clicked out?

Oh, this got me... my Nude Day story went up this morning. 3305 views, 9 votes. A whopping 367:1. You cannot tell me that the lion's share of those "reads" are not click-outs.

 

[FrancesScott]

Oh, this got me... my Nude Day story went up this morning. 3305 views, 9 votes. A whopping 367:1. You cannot tell me that the lion's share of those "reads" are not click-outs.

Based on what happens across the rest of the Internet, 90 - 95% of “views” last as long as teenage boy* finding PornHub for the first time.

* Over 18 obv

 

[ElectricBlue]

Based on what happens across the rest of the Internet, 90 - 95% of “views” last as long as teenage boy* finding PornHub for the first time.

* Over 18 obv

Agree. My not very scientific calculation, based on my chaptered stories and seeing how many views there are on the last chapters, is that maybe one in five who open Chapter One will finish the whole story, and that's if you're lucky. Based on my own curiosity openings, that's being generous.

 

[Actingup]

Deter them from starting unless they're going to commit. Those bouncers at the door are there for a reason. I'm trying that strategy with my current (25K word) story... we'll see how it goes.

 

[HordHolm]

Of course, one perfect way to make a reader finish is by adding 'The End' at the appropriate point.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

But how about some positive advice? Something more concrete than "I just try to write an engaging story." Sure, we all do that. But what do you do to engage your reader? Instead of just shrugging and muttering "dunno", take a moment and think about your writing style, or your approach to characters and plot, or setting the mood, or whatever.

What I have tried to do with my series is make it clear that there's a larger, overarching story behind the obvious titillating bits. I like to allude to past events that I will get to in the story eventually, as well as writing parts as if they're being written by a future version of the main character, so that folks know there's more coming.

I want people to enjoy each story on its own, but I also want them to want to know what happens next, so that they keep reading. It's a lot of teasing with plot.

I know for some folks, the sex is the point of their stories, but for me, the sex is kind of like the trail of breadcrumbs I leave to get people to keep going to follow the story.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I have 72 stories published on LitE. There's a total of over 1.5 million views and well over 29K votes. That's almost a 1 to 50 votes to view ratio.

I think the key is emotions! The author needs to draw out an emotion other than "Meh, whatever!" by the end of the story. Whether it's love, hate, outrage, sadness, you need to get to their emotional right-brain feelings that they didn't just read ANOTHER story. When they're sheading a tear or seething in anger, at "The End", they'll likely click on a star.

And story quality isn't as important as getting that emotional reaction. As an admittedly shitty writer, my stats show this. I write to Loving Wives category, where it's easy to get the 1-bombs. But even a 1 is a vote!

 

[VallesMarineris]

But how about some positive advice? Something more concrete than "I just try to write an engaging story." Sure, we all do that. But what do you do to engage your reader? Instead of just shrugging and muttering "dunno", take a moment and think about your writing style, or your approach to characters and plot, or setting the mood, or whatever.

My personal guidelines to keep the reader reading:

— I always start my story where the action starts. I’m not afraid of flashbacks to later fill in the history of the characters and their situations.

— I only give as much backstory as necessary to keep the story moving. I try to always keep in mind Elmore Leonard’s famous advice: try not to include the parts that readers skip over. I let my beta readers tell me if they want more detail.

— Show, don’t tell. This includes descriptions of the setting, whether a lazy beach resort or an exotic planet. I try to have my characters interact with their environment and show it that way.

— I try to end each chapter on a cliffhanger. It’s clickbait to get them to open the next chapter.

This seems to work for me.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I think you're overlooking a few important factors.

First of all, I have about twice as many followers than you do. I would think followers are more likely to vote than non-followers.

Secondly, I don't know how many contests/events you have entered, but I think that that may skew voting totals. Winning a few definitely does.

And I think category may be a factor. I didn't look at the numbers specifically, but maybe it's worth checking to see if certain categories (I am thinking particularly of Novels and Novellas) have a higher ratio of votes to views.

This is totally true. Someone will make a claim that a certain category has low traffic or that it scores lower and invariably someone will reply all smug, "Oh, that's not true, my only story in that category does just fine, blah blah ..." and then you check the profile of that person and they have 5000 followers collected over 10 years and piles of glowing comments from their fans all over their 40 stories. Of course their story will do well no matter where they post it. So you point that out and they say, "Oh, I'm not that popular, pfft."

Oh, yes you are.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

First bit of advice - unless you're publishing in SF&F, don't publish a series. Just don't. You don't get the views that you would get with a stand-alone story, and every chapter is an opportunity for the reader to stop reading.

But if the intention is to actually get the reader to finish the story it does not matter whether the story is published standalone or in chapters. The only thing against chaptered stories is if they are unfinished or if the reader doesn't want to start reading something still in progress. But then that will cut down the 'starts' just as easily as the 'finishes'.

We all know that hits go down with each successive chapter as interest drops off. But at least we get an accurate idea of how that interest dropped off. A standalone story will have the same amount of dropped interest, yet everyone who reads one or two chapters and quits will be recorded as a hit just as anyone who actually completes the read. We have no idea what percentage of our views actually finished the story.

Let's say that we have a 100k word story.

Version 1: standalone 100k file
Version 2: submitted in 10 10k word chapters

If version 1 has say 20k hits, and version 2 has 20k hits for chapter 1, 15k for ch 2, 10k for ch 3, and dwindles down to 4-5k for chapters 6 through 10, we cannot interpret this to mean that more people finish the standalone than the chaptered version. There is no evidence for that whatsoever.

Furthermore, if the standalone scores 4.6 and the chaptered story scores 4.6 for ch 1 and roughly trends upwards towards 4.75 by chapter 10, we cannot even draw conclusion that readers enjoyed chaptered work more, since chapter 1 will score well on it's own merit on how well it grabbed people, not on the entire work, and of course subsequent chapters equally scored on their own merit rather than the overall plot arc etc, and also only voted on by the biased voters who continue to read along. The standalone version will be scored by different criteria (perhaps very different criteria) which will encompass many aspects of the story, even by people who read the whole thing and mostly enjoyed it.

So we cannot compare the popularity of chaptered works vs standalones in this way.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

What I've noticed that's curious as well is that while the view:vote ratio shrinks over time in a series, it doesn't do so as much as I would expect, and after a few chapters the ratio may not change at all. This surprised me. Intuitively, I would expect a dramatic change, indicating that for later stories the only people clicking on them are those who've read the previous chapters, but this isn't what I'm seeing from the data.

I would speculate that it is probably just the notion that anyone who gets as far as chapter 4 or 5 or 6 is more likely committed to all 27 chapters by that point. The most bails will be after chapter 1. The next most chapter 2. After that, if you've made it that far you are more likely to continue.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Well there's finishing a story and finishing during a story. Both are worthy goals.

Or like my beta reader tells me when I ask her if she had trouble "putting it down". She said, "Oh, I had to put it down a few times. ; )".

 

[iwatchus]

What I've noticed that's curious as well is that while the view:vote ratio shrinks over time in a series, it doesn't do so as much as I would expect, and after a few chapters the ratio may not change at all. This surprised me. Intuitively, I would expect a dramatic change, indicating that for later stories the only people clicking on them are those who've read the previous chapters, but this isn't what I'm seeing from the data. I think what's happening is that new readers will click on "Erotic Story Chapter 37" to see if it looks interesting, and use that click to then navigate to the beginning of the story.

I think there is another counter balancing factor. I know when I was just reading, I was less likely to rate a later chapter, usually only if it was notably different from earlier ones. The problem is that actually rating a story is a crude surrogate for finishing it. I suspect a higher percentage of readers finish the story, but a lower percentage of those finishing actually rate the story. There is a mental cost to voting. It is not exorbitant, but it will dissuade people, especially when they can click the label to go the next chapter in the series.

 

[VallesMarineris]

I think there is another counter balancing factor. I know when I was just reading, I was less likely to rate a later chapter, usually only if it was notably different from earlier ones. The problem is that actually rating a story is a crude surrogate for finishing it. I suspect a higher percentage of readers finish the story, but a lower percentage of those finishing actually rate the story. There is a mental cost to voting. It is not exorbitant, but it will dissuade people, especially when they can click the label to go the next chapter in the series.

That's an interesting bit of psychology that I hadn't thought of. Giving 5 stares to each of 10 chapters may feel like giving 50 stars for some readers.

 

[8letters]

But if the intention is to actually get the reader to finish the story it does not matter whether the story is published standalone or in chapters. The only thing against chaptered stories is if they are unfinished or if the reader doesn't want to start reading something still in progress. But then that will cut down the 'starts' just as easily as the 'finishes'.

We all know that hits go down with each successive chapter as interest drops off. But at least we get an accurate idea of how that interest dropped off. A standalone story will have the same amount of dropped interest, yet everyone who reads one or two chapters and quits will be recorded as a hit just as anyone who actually completes the read. We have no idea what percentage of our views actually finished the story.

Let's say that we have a 100k word story.

Version 1: standalone 100k file
Version 2: submitted in 10 10k word chapters

If version 1 has say 20k hits, and version 2 has 20k hits for chapter 1, 15k for ch 2, 10k for ch 3, and dwindles down to 4-5k for chapters 6 through 10, we cannot interpret this to mean that more people finish the standalone than the chaptered version. There is no evidence for that whatsoever.

Furthermore, if the standalone scores 4.6 and the chaptered story scores 4.6 for ch 1 and roughly trends upwards towards 4.75 by chapter 10, we cannot even draw conclusion that readers enjoyed chaptered work more, since chapter 1 will score well on it's own merit on how well it grabbed people, not on the entire work, and of course subsequent chapters equally scored on their own merit rather than the overall plot arc etc, and also only voted on by the biased voters who continue to read along. The standalone version will be scored by different criteria (perhaps very different criteria) which will encompass many aspects of the story, even by people who read the whole thing and mostly enjoyed it.

So we cannot compare the popularity of chaptered works vs standalones in this way.

Here's a comparison of Stand-Alone Stories vs Ch 01 vs Later Chapters from 2018:

First chapters have 75% of the views that Stand-Alone Stories, and subsequent chapters have 40% of the views. So in your example, Ch 1 would have 15K views. I'm not sure what the dwindling down would be.

Speaking from personal experience, I use the name, description, and rating to decide to click on a story, and those do a pretty good job of getting me to stories that are appealing enough for me. I'll read them for a while to get what the characters and situation are like. A lot of stories, from the first page, I know how the story is going to end, so I'll skip to the ending where the good stuff is. Hopefully, mission accomplished. If not, I'll pick another story to read. So, with a stand-alone story, I generally read the beginning, skip the middle, and read the ending.

But I can't do that with a chapter story. The ending isn't there. I may read the first chapter, but, as I don't read Literotica every day, I'll probably miss subsequent chapters. I'm very unlikely to read the ending of a series, whereas I usually read the ending of a stand-alone story.

YMMV