Just in case if you are wondering who we are interviewing this month, you can check out this link and get all your author friends from The Memoirs/Biography genre to participate in the next group interview.

1) Author #1: J. J. DiBenedetto

A good sense of pacing is really important – to keep the story moving, but also to give the reader time to breathe now and then, and to include enough moments that we can get to know the characters better to care about/root for them.

2) Author #2: Fran Veal

Twists and turns and more twists and turns. I think unpredictability is what keeps me reading – chapters that end with a cliff hanger only to switch to another POV, forcing me to read on and on until the cliff hanger is resolved, only to find myself facing another dangling chapter end. Oh, and goose bumps. It has to give me goose bumps at some point.

3) Author #3: Jim Strait

For me as a reader it requires believable action with as little background information as possible about the characters. The main players need to be fleshed out only enough for me to relate to them as a human being…I don’t need to know the minutiae. Also, the story needs to be unique. I actually stopped reading “thrillers, mysteries” more than a decade ago because they all began to feel the same…stories phoned-in that were just regurgitated versions of another similar novel. My goal is to provide the reader a unique experience, something they’d never considered before and then make that story…even if fantastic in nature…feel real.

4) Author #4: Kelli Sue Landon

 Keeping the suspense going. I normally throw in more than one mystery as the story unfolds, even if it means killing off another character. I like to surprise the reader.

What do you think makes a book a real page-turner? I look forward to reading your comments below.

Next, we will be revealing the answers for question #4 which is “Shorter stories (below 350 pages) are better for mystery/thriller or suspense books. Do you agree with this statement? Do you think the suspense elements in a book are difficult to retain when the story is longer? ”

Stay tuned for the next post! Thank you! 🙂