Make ’em Wait

How writerly delays can Increase reader satisfaction

When I was on my Creative Writing M.A Course we had a lecturer who often used to tell us ‘Make ’em wait’ if he felt we were rushing to resolve a crisis or a problem we’d created in our fiction. It was good advice. Readers don’t want events tied up too quickly – they like to worry about our characters and angst about their difficulties, preferably over one or more chapters, if not longer.

Maybe it’s because I’m a teacher, but I have a natural tendency to want to tie up every loose end. I was the child who always ended her stories with the characters going home to tea! But that won’t do in fiction – At any rate, not if we want to keep our readers engaged.  

When my mother was ill in hospital, many years ago now, I used to set off to visit her just as the afternoon play was starting on the radio. I would often be so immersed in the drama that I’d have to stay sitting in the car, even though I’d arrived at the hospital car park, in order to find out what happened. Those playwrights were good story-tellers. I always felt a tinge of guilt when I did get in to see my mother, knowing I could have arrived ten minutes earlier, but I was powerless in the hands of a skilful dramatist. I just had to find out what happened.

 My first novel, The Oceans Between Us, features a mother and son separated by a bomb attack. The mother remains in England whilst the son is sent to Australia as part of the child migrant scheme (he’d ended up in a children’s home as his mother had lost her memory, and the home had asked for volunteers to go out to Oz as part of a government scheme. Believing his mother dead, Jack, my protagonist, signs up to travel across the oceans to a new mother and a new home.) When I was pitching the novel to agents, I suggested that the desire to discover whether mother and son are ever reunited would be what caused the reader to turn the pages. It seemed to work, as I landed an agent and a publishing deal. Making my readers wait turned out to be a successful tactic. You don’t find out if there is a reunion until the last chapter. Of course I couldn’t possibly tell you how my story is resolved….

You’ll have to wait!