How to Keep Your Readers Engaged: Three Simple Tips

Some people often get confused by chapter endings and last chapters. So what is the difference between the two and knowing how to make your next chapter too good to ignore? The two are very different from each other. Let's find out how.

1. Unforgettable Endings

Last chapters are the final chapters of your story. As an example, they feature resolution and a little of left-over climax. This is where mysteries are explained, loose ends tied up, and come-uppances delivered. The hero and hero overcome all the issues that have kept them apart, be it external or internal conflict, and we have our happy ever after—or at least for the foreseeable future.

In one story I came across (with quite an old publication date so this writer was already breaking the mold), the hero was a millionaire who'd lost everything. He was going to have to start all over again. The heroine was going to support him as they began life in quite a modest apartment. It was a fascinating bucking of the traditional trend.

So if you're going to write a romance, let it be one that the reader will remember for a long time, if not forever. You don't have to bankrupt the hero, but "add a little frisson", as one of my characters, DJ, advises the hero Gerry in my novel Beneath the Beta.

2. Creating Interest through Your Chapter Endings

If you're writing a novel with chapters, each chapter in your book might be 3,000-4,000k words on average . Or it could be 300 words. Go with what works for that section. Use your reader skills to tell you if it feels right to make a break. It could be something poignant, a bit of drama or mystique, a cliff-hanging moment. Whatever it is, try and create some emotion in the reader that piques their curiosity.

"Because I know you're gay."

The last lines of your chapters, other than the final one, should hold as much interest as its opening ones. It is the magic marker; that stepping stone which guides your reader on to the next section. You’ve got them dancing along, there's the suspense, humour, tension, everything gripping and suddenly, there’s the hook—you’ve got the reader thinking about what happens next.

In this chapter ending from my contemporary romance The Monk's Proposal, the recently divorced heroine, Evangeline Prentice, has just turned down a proposition from her reclusive neighbour.

"Why not?"

Rafe didn't seem overly concerned by her rejection of his proposal. But the touch of his mouth over her thumb disabled her ability to filter. Especially the knowledge she'd been keeping to herself for so long. Later on, she would cringe repeatedly at its Freudian escape. For now, it emerged fluttering softly from her lips, no less crass for its gentle delivery.

"Because I know you're gay."

3. Throwing a Spanner in the Works

• Someone's turned who shouldn't have. They've arrived just as someone else has just made life-changing plans, or there's a a will to be read, or to stop someone making a terrible mistake.

• They're a secret well-kept and not welcome.

• There's a diagnosis.

• Someone's spotted an intriguing resemblance between two people (one of them being a child is a common trope).

• A clue or comment falls into place.

• War begins.

• Aliens arrive.

And so on.

 To grab your reader's loyalty, the key is to leave the reader wanting more; eager to read the next instalment. Mystery clues dotted throughout are always a good element: readers love to play detective. So it doesn't always have to be the chapter ending, but something that's caught their attention. That hook. They want to find out if their theory is correct.

I've personally condemned any number of innocent victims in the stories I read, although oddly, in movies I always finger the right person almost from the get-go. I guessed the twist in M. Night Shyamalan's iconic horror The Sixth Sense in a most inanely clueless moment, but it took nothing away from a chilling, well made and pretty damn scary movie..

Remember, keeping the reader on that journey is important. Drop clues, leave hints but don't give it all away. In fiction, stay the hell away from the this was becauses.

Have a look again at some of books you've recently read. What made you want to turn to next page or chapter? Once you understand the key elements of chapter endings, you'll be able to carry over something that holds the reader all the way to the end of the book.