Why do we read, what we read?

Why did you pick out the latest book that you read? Was it the cover art that attracted you, and kept the book in your hands all the way to the check-out stand? Probably not, although that art may have been why you picked out the book in the first place.  Most likely, after you marveled at the picture on the front, you opened the front leaf and read the synopsis of the story contained within the pages of the book. Perhaps you picked the book because of a favorable review in the newspaper or magazine. It might even have been a discussion on television or radio that interested you and caused you to acquire the book mentioned.

[Side note: For the moment I’m going to leave aside the question of why we read what genera we tend to prefer. Science fiction readers may never understand why Romance fiction readers go for the ripped bodice or torn shirt front. Historical fiction readers won’t be able to understand why Scifi readers go for the shiny space ships. We’ll leave that an open question, answered by the “To each his own” response that may be the only logical response.]

Allied to the first question of “why we chose the book in the first place,” is why we would choose another book in the series, or by the same author? Here other factors come into play. Was the lead character, or characters, in the first book appealing enough for us to want to visit with them again? Was the author tricky enough to leave unresolved issues on the table, which we want to see resolved? Were the methods used by the character interesting enough, that we want to see if they will work the next time?

Of course there are other reasons we would go back to the same author. Just the style of writing can be enough to bring us back to the next book from that pen. Were the issues raised by the author enough to bring us back to that spot on the book shelves looking for more? Did the author treat subjects that we found so interesting, that we want to find out more about how the author will handle them? Were they perhaps so titillating and tantalizing, that we would rush back for additional thrills?

Many of the most successful authors have employed some of these methods, to draw us back to their works. Certainly the methods of observation used by Sherlock Holmes were intriguing enough to bring millions of readers back, book after book to find out how the sleuth would discover the evil villain the next time. The same can be said for Agatha Christy characters. Who else would be able to create two such different characters such as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot and make them so interesting as to drag us back for more and more of their adventures?

As of late, we have J.K. Rowling as the queen of the “unresolved issue” method of keeping her readers coming back for more. To be fair she also utilized the “appealing character” method to keep us interested in the adventures.

Are there draw backs to utilizing these methods? Well the problem with the “unresolved issue” is that eventually the author does have to resolve the issue, and then what have you? In Rowling’s case it produced millions of readers who wanted more. She has said that she has told the story of the boy wizard, and that there isn’t anything else to say. She even included a sort of epilog at the end of the final book, to show that the characters had completed the cycle. Readers didn’t buy that and thought that she was simply setting them up for another series of books. So far, she has resisted all pleas for more of the world of magic that she created.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created a character so irresistible that he was unable to stop writing stories for him. He decided to end the Holmes stories and move on to other endeavors, so he killed off Sherlock. Not so, said his fans. After a reasonable period of mourning, eight years, Holmes was resurrected and lived on to solve again.

So it appears that for some, a successful method of bringing readers back for more can backfire. For those of us aspiring writers the idea of being too successful is an appealing problem. One which I’d be willing to undergo, so go over to Kindle and download “Time Out.”