Reviews have always been an important marketing tactic used by publishers. They would reach out to influential authors, editorial magazines, and other important industry professionals to give a book clout before its release.
Now more than ever, the review system has become democratized through the use of algorithms that promote book sales automatically. This is great news for represented and indie authors alike because more than ever the people who love what they read can promote it. But it still requires work from you, so we’ve written a guide for writing a story that gets great reviews from your everyday readers to help.
Drop Readers into the Action
Before your readers can write a review, first you have to get them to pick up the book, and that requires a great hook. One of the best ways to get readers invested quickly is by throwing them into a scene without much explanation.
Taking the time to introduce your characters and explain who they are is telling, but having your readers take part in their daily lives can get across the same explanation in a way that shows it naturally. Your first scene doesn’t have to be fighting all out in a war to be dropping them into the action. It can be as simple as packing a backpack for the first day of their senior year and fighting off their mom’s invasive first-day questions. Just get started to get readers onboard.
Meet Your Act Break Checkpoints
Once you have a reader hooked on your novel, you have to keep them wanting more. A lot of this is up to your wonderful creativity in world building and characterization that initially piques your reader’s interest, but there is an algorithm to storytelling based in human psychology that will give you checkpoints for your plot and pacing:
Inciting Incident
Within the first 10% of your novel.
The “everything has changed” moment.
Act I Break
~25% of the way through your novel.
The move from situation to rising action.
Midpoint
~50% of the way through your novel. (imagine that)
Your MC moves from reaction to proactive action
Act II Break
~75% of the way through your novel.
The move from a belabored pace to a mad dash
Climax
at ~90% of the way through your novel.
The culmination of everything that came before in one moment.
Denouement
The last 10% of the novel.
One of two outcomes:
The consequences of the climax.
The inciting incident of the next story in your series.
By meeting these ratios in your story, you keep readers onboard by feeding them exactly what they need to keep going. Just when things get old, the stakes or the way your character reacts to them changes.
Get Yourself a Killer Climax
The climax of your novel is the literal peak of the story where everything you have worked for comes together in one top-notch scene. This is the scene that will make or break your reviews because it will tell your readers whether or not their time and effort was worth it based upon your story payoff. You want something surprising but inevitable and believable but inescapable. Pacing for these moments is particularly tricky as well. If there’s one scene you want to work on with a book coach, using it to write a better climax is probably going to be the best bang for your buck.
Satisfy Readers with Your Ending
Did you ever play sports as a child? Me neither. But I do remember my school gym teachers working with me on my form over and over again in hopes I could eventually learn how to manipulate the equipment to help my team win. Spoiler: it didn’t work, but I do remember the one thing they always said. You have to follow through on the motion.
The same is true for your story’s end. This is especially true when it comes to those of us writing particularly surprising climaxes. When your character makes a sudden change that alters their path, you have to use the word count in the falling action and resolution to sell it. Show your readers why this leads to the ending they need. It’s a great way to head off “I hated the ending” reviews.
Of course, you don’t have to have a particularly surprising ending to your conflict, and if that is the case, use your denouement to write a love story to your readers. What do they desperately want for this character, and do they get it? Or else, use the very end to set up a cliffhanger to deliver that dose of surprise that keeps them on the hook for your next story when they least expect it.
As you can tell, there are moments at every point in your story where you have some control of how you’ll be reviewed. Of course, this advice is made generic to fit stories of all shapes, sizes, genres and audiences. If you want a more focused reaction to the points in your novel where you could make a bigger impression on readers, consider giving a professional beta reader a try. They’re like a first, private reviewer with industry knowledge on how to fix your problem areas.
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