Sidney Sheldon Quotes

The first paragraph of my book must get me my reader. The last paragraph of a chapter must compel my reader to turn the page. The last paragraph of my book must ensure that my reader looks out for my next book.

I don't want my readers slowed down by long passages of narrative.

Even now I try to make each page compelling for the readers to get absorbed in the book.

What keeps readers turning pages is suspense, which you can create using a variety of techniques, including tension, pacing and foreshadowing.

You have to take pains in a memoir not to hang on the reader's arm, like a drunk, and say, 'And then I did this and it was so interesting.

Roughly, the action of a character should be unpredictable before it has been shown, inevitable when it has been shown. In the first half of a novel, the unpredictability should be the more striking. In the second half, the inevitability should be the more striking.

My job as an author is to tell the story in the best way possible, to make it flow seamlessly and get the reader to keep turning the page.

If you read the first page of one of my novels, I can guarantee that you will read the last one. This isn't just social commentary. This is also about writing good page-turners. I want people to keep reading.

I want to tell a story that makes the reader always want to see what will happen next.

It's always good to have a story arch.

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.

The way to write a thriller is to ask a question at the beginning, and answer it at the end.

I go to great lengths to make certain situations feel right to the reader.

'City of Fallen Angels' ended on a cliffhanger. That was equally loved and hated by my readership.

Sometimes, you don't realize that something is actually a sidetrack for the story, or it takes the tension out of a scene.

You never want your second act or the whole movie to just be this relentless march towards its goal. You want things to take the audience by surprise.

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

I am trying to give the best performance possible in 400 pages. I want readers to be scared; I want them to be moved. Entertainment doesn't necessarily mean something trivial, but it does mean people wanting to get to the end of a book.

I enjoy a good cliffhanger. As a reader, I relish that nervous feeling you get when you're engrossed in a story, but in the back of your mind you're aware that there aren't that many pages left. How will it end? Everything can't be wrapped up! This can't end! Then it does, and your heart seems to stop.

I'm trying to make the readers feel as if he or she is right there in the conversation, and so I don't try to manipulate it too much.

On the page, 'Gone Girl' was a literary game: a tennis match of alternating chapters from Nick and Amy, with the reader offering to take each character's side every few pages.

While I had no intention of ending the series after 'The Spellmans Strike Again,' I did close many doors in that book and, with the fifth one, I was opening a lot of doors and not finding anything behind them and then opening another door and another until I found something. It was a while before I found my stride.

My desire as a storyteller is to always catch the readers off guard; to give them something they aren't expecting, and take them in a direction that is satisfying in the here and non.

I want to write books that keep people up at night, where they cry through the first forty pages and keep reading anyway.

I try to mix the characters up and not be second guessed by the audience.