What keeps your reader awake?

[JT Billow]

I thought that good connection between characters improves connection between the prose and the reader, but that's something I am struggling with.

I know this may sound trivial, but try to put your own self into the position of the character your writing, at that particular scene. What would you do? What would you think before action?

[MuchAdoAboutSFF]

Difficulty, to me, is to do as you said and on the same time try to simulate character (who is not *anything* like me) thought. Difficult to the extreme.

[ShellyS]

What keeps me reading is interesting things happening to characters I care about, but pretty much nothing keeps me awake at night unless I've got under 50 pages to go.

I've read page turners by best selling authors that I could easily put down, so what works for some readers won't necessarily work for all readers.

Suspense that builds steadily or increasing danger to the characters I'm enjoying can keep me turning pages, but if I get the sense that I'm being manipulated or that the danger isn't quite real or that the hero/protag is so much better/more clever than the villain/antagonist, then I lose interest. I felt that way about an early, major bestseller by a mystery writer who has legions of fans and more bestsellers than I have fingers and I've never read another book he wrote after that first one. He bored me and the book was forgettable. Yet it was a page turner, until I was almost at the end.

Subjective qualities are hard if not impossible to nail down.

[MuchAdoAboutSFF]

I'm currently reading a technothriller, which uses quite often two "big issues" -- conflicts, questions, mysteries, dangers, whatever you have, in each scene. Page-turner, yes, but somehow I see a structure. Kind of focuses reader to one issue and then surprises with another. Mostly works well, although I must admit that I'm not very critical reader. Trickery, yes, but works well.