Lynsey Addario Quotes

Will the reader turn the page?

I believe the most important thing you can do in any kind of novel is to make your reader want to go on with it and want to know what happens next.

We are all like Scheherazade's husband, in that we want to know what happens next.

Technique holds a reader from sentence to sentence, but only content will stay in his mind.

A good novel begins with a small question and ends with a bigger one.

Crassly put: When I write, I am trying not to bore myself and my readers.

Whether you do stand-up comedy or write a story, you have a duty to deliver. As a comedian, you walk out on stage, and you have a minute to hook them, or they'll start booing. As a writer, it's very similar. A reader doesn't have time to say, 'I'll give him 50 pages, as it's not very good yet, but I hope it'll get better.'

You've got to write for your audience.

I'm writing for my ideal reader, for somebody who's willing to take the time, who's willing to get lost in a new world, who's willing to do their part. But then I have to do my part and give them a sound and a voice that they believe in enough to keep going.

When there's an authentic mystery, as opposed to just a question being asked, that's what makes you lean forward.

People read me but they don't subscribe.

Suspense is my thing. I think I am able to make people want to keep turning pages. They want to know what happens. So I can do that.

As a child, I would demand that visitors to our house tell me a story. I was intensely interested in everything - still am.

Rather than saying people aren't interested when things don't take off, you should take it on yourself to say, 'I'm not doing a great job of telling the story in a way that makes it interesting.'

The main thing is to think strategically about what will engage your readers. Trust me when I tell you that few people are eager to read a story whose opening lines sound like a dissertation on giant bugs.

Readers are what it's all about, aren't they? If not, why am I writing?

What we want to tell, we wish our friend to have curiosity to hear.

I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning until the end.

But I care about the reader, and I'm trying to keep the reader's attention for as long as I can.

I want to earn a reader's capacity to be moved.

Questions that require answers are what keep readers going - and the place to start raising those questions is with your very first sentence.

My rule of thumb is that if I am interested or intrigued by something, others will be as well.

If you care about who I want to write about, I'll write about the people you want to read about.

What you look for as a reader is somebody who is going to take you and say, 'C'mon. Come into the story. I'm going to show you what there is to see.' The guide who is going to tell you, 'Pay attention over there,' or, 'Do you remember that other thing? Now watch!'

I'm not a writer who thinks about writing only for themselves; I do always have a reader in mind.