🗸 Is my story just warming up, or getting into it?

Readers are impatient.  Your stories shouldn't start with ringing alarms, or knocks on the door, or things that promise future excitement, if only they keep reading, it'll really get to the good part in a few pages--No, the story needs to be exciting and engaging immediately.

Yes, from the very first line.

If your conflict is a car accident, don't start with them getting in the car.

If your conflict is a bank robbery shooting, don't start with them arriving at work.

If your conflict is the protagonist being dumped, don't start with them arriving at the party.

Start with the conflict in the very first sentence if possible. If you feel you have to set up the scene or characters, you can always double-back for it after you've successfully hooked the reader into the basic premise.

Also, avoid landscape descriptions, and overwrought prologues that don't tell the reader what kind of story they're dealing with. Don't speak directly to the reader. Don't immediately deploy eloquent prose designed to show what a brilliant writer you are.

But above all, start with conflict.

🗸 Does my story start with compelling questions?

If you've read the chapters on titles, covers, and blurbs, I'll bet you're exhausted from me mentioning curiosity, questions, and mysteries. But they are instrumental in creating a real page-turner! Remember the trick to curiosity: it is the absence of information that the reader knows is there, but that they are deprived of. 

Say your protagonist wakes up in the dark, lying, squeezed in by walls all around him. The reader automatically begins creating questions: Where are they? Why is there no light? How come they can't move. Eventually, we start answering the questions. They're in a coffin! Well then, now the questions are, How did they end up there? Did someone try to kill them? How are they still alive?

See, questions help propel the story along, making the reader want to flip the page to find the answers to the next questions. Make sure to start your story with a hearty helping of mystery!

🗸 Is my writing style making it too hard to comprehend?

In the chapter on Blurbs, I mentioned how U.S. Presidents talk at an elementary school level, not because they are simple, but because they want to reach as wide an audience as possible. The same applies to our chapters. It's a basic fact that increased complexity increases the time it takes to comprehend a sentence. The dog went down the river is faster to read than The fluffy brown dog swam against the rushing waters.

Further, unfamiliar sentences not only take longer to comprehend, but also risk kicking the reader out of the story:

You're going to do great on your exam, I talked to myself.

Notice how that doesn't sound quite right? I talked to myself kicks us out of the story, even though it's technically correct. Why? Because it's not as common as its alternative:

You're going to do great on your exam, I told myself.

It can be hard to tell when we've learnt unusual writing styles. They're not necessarily a bad thing, but again, they may increase reading time or risk kicking the reader out of the story. If you want the reader to stay immersed in the story, try reading common, published books in the genre of your choice. You'll learn writing styles that are more familiar to readers, and thus more easy to comprehend.

🗸 Are there any grammar or spelling mistakes?

This shouldn't have to be said, but unfortunately, here at Wattpad, it needs to be screamed from the rooftops. Grammar and spelling mistakes kick the reader out of the story, meaning that they stop paying attention to what you're saying, and can't help but focus on how you said it. You can have the most heartrending deth scene ever, but the reader will only be thinking, oh my gosh, I can't believe they misspelt 'death' as 'deth'.

🗸 Is my story showing or telling?

It's awesome, writing. We get to explore the worlds of our imagination. But sometimes, we forget that when we share work for others, we must create the world in their imagination. We must use our words to stir the best possible visualizations in their minds.

One of the most effective ways to do this is by showing, not telling.

It's easy enough to tell the reader: She crashed her car. And sometimes it's okay to simply tell the reader that. But other times, we need to immerse the reader in the car crash. To do that, we show, by using sensory information: Glass shattered across pavement. The shriek of tearing metal. The world flipping upside down.

If your story does too much telling, I'd suggest going through your story line-by-line. Covert all the telling into sentences that draw the reader into the scene, and you'll have your readers on the edge of their seats, screaming for dear life!