I often think about the types of sto­ries I liked at the same age as my read­er — sto­ries that were fast-paced, or mys­te­ri­ous, or dramatic.

When I write, I try to move the sto­ry for­ward in a way that cap­tures the read­er. That can be accom­plished in dif­fer­ent ways: cap­ti­vat­ing open­ing lines, cliff hang­ers at the end of chap­ters, chap­ter open­ings that fore­shad­ow some­thing inter­est­ing is going to happen.

I also try to keep the sto­ry taut by avoid­ing long nar­ra­tive sec­tions of “telling.” Instead, I try weave into the dia­log some of the infor­ma­tion and descrip­tions about char­ac­ters, the weath­er, or the setting.

I also attempt to give my pro­tag­o­nist (and my read­er) enough tools to emo­tion­al­ly han­dle what­ev­er hap­pens at the end of the sto­ry, whether it’s a hap­py res­o­lu­tion, sad, poignant, or open-ended.

When writ­ing, one of the goals on which I try to stay focused is this: I want the read­er to feel com­pelled to turn the page, and if I’ve done my job well enough, to read the sto­ry more than once.