How to Draw Readers Into Your Story

The big question for today is how do you “ground” readers into your story and pull them in?

How I ground readers into my story and pull them in are through with three different but successful methods. The first method is the all important hook. Through the course of the opening sentence, paragraph, or scene of your book a hook’s goal is to snare the reader’s attention.

It is like the first kiss of your story—the first part that grabs the reader’s attention and keeps them ‘hooked’. It’s all about sparking curiosity, stirring up emotions, or building tension so strong that the reader says, “I can’t put the book down!” It is done in a way that you get the reader to ask themselves several questions. Why? What next? Who’s it happening to? The hook is about getting the readers to invest themselves in the story.

The second method I use is more based on story structure than the standard hook, but it’s still a hook all the same. I start the beginning of my story ‘in media res’. It is a Latin phrase that means ‘in the middle of things’. This launches the story into action right at the beginning of the book on the first page. The reader is left asking themselves several questions about what’s happening in the story. By launching straight into an action sequence the reader has these questions dangled before them and they have to wait to have them answered until the scene plays out and the info is leaked to the reader.

So, let’s get into how exactly we’re going to ground the reader into the story after the hook or the opening action sequence. We are talking about re-hooking the reader throughout the entire story. Ever since grammar school, our teachers have drilled the five W’s into us from an early age. The five basic W’s which need to be answered are… Who? What? When? Where? Why? And then How?

But here’s the catch. As an author, you can’t simply regurgitate those answers onto the page. Doing so would be considered an information dump. Info dumps slow the pacing and have a likelihood to pull the reader from the story. That is the opposite of what we want. Remember, we want to ground the reader into the story and pull them in. Not push them away.

I discuss in a podcast titled, Layering a Story, about the benefits of layering information, such as, Characters. Setting. Timeframe. Conflict. Goals (wants and needs), in order to continually re-hook the reader over and over and over again. A skilled author will not only hook the reader at the beginning of the story, but hook the reader as the story progresses in both small ways and through monumental turning points. This is the third way to ground a reader into your story. Layering information from the beginning of the story until the end.

Ways to break up a story and keep it moving without slowing it down with a bunch of backstory is to show the characters or the setting through action. Have a character act a certain way to demonstrate particular traits. Equally so, the same can be done for the setting by slipping it into the action of the characters. One good way of introducing information is by allowing it to naturally flow through dialogue. If it doesn’t make sense to have it naturally appear in the scene then cut it out of the story. Find a new scene or a new way to get the information across.

Another way to accomplish this is to describe the world as your character sees it. Demonstrate through their sight, smell, taste, sound, and touch. Weave their memories and feelings into the conversation. Additionally, sometimes it’s what you don’t say that is important. Subtext can be a powerful tool that raises tension and builds character depth. Each of these techniques builds on the previous layers and the reader gets pulled deeper and deeper into the story.

Thank you for joining me as I explored my writing journey. Continue reviewing my blogs and don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter where I share writing topics, behind-the-scene details, and members-only content. Remember to go over to my media page to watch my podcasts and learn additional content or view them on YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok. Like and subscribe for more content.