There are only two ways to create page turning content in a novel.  And, interestingly, they are the same two things you have to do to create a great life.  You must, on every page, have a problem to solve or an adventure to follow.  Otherwise, your reader will go…ho hum…nothing is happening…no reason to find out what happens next…and put down your book.  Deadly!

Over the course of a book, you’ll solve a good deal of the smaller problems, but don’t do it without FIRST creating a problem/adventure that is even BIGGER to pull the reader along.  So if Mayden has a problem with her father, I can solve it. But not before I create an even bigger issue–even if it is only looming in the background–to keep my readers wondering what will happen with that. 

In life, you want to live out a page turner, right?  Same rule applies.  Create an adventure, or you will find youself with a problem to solve.  Like turning a page, it’s what makes us get up in the morning! I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be living out my chosen adventure (like writing Mayden online, in real time, with the world watching–Yikes!), than wake up trying to deal with some problem I created for myself to make life interesting.  It’s not on purpose, of course, and you may say you never create your own problems.  But I’ve found that I’m much more involved in the creation of my own problems (un- or maybe sub-conscious) AND adventures (conscious) than I used to think!  

Just watch your own life, and see when you go to bed each night which you had more of…adventures or problems?  And what do you want when you wake up? If you want an adventure, plan it, and make it happen.  Might have just as many headaches as an adventure, but it’s a CHOSEN headache. That makes all the difference.  Just ask someoneone with frozen hands, feet, and who is having trouble breathing…it’s a lot more fun choosing to go mountain climbing than getting locked out of your car in a sleet storm.