How can you entice your reader to turn the page?
By writing a good story, of course!

The drama within the tale—plus the implied question ‘how will it all turn out?’—should be motivation enough.
But it isn’t.

Even great stories must be structured to sustain that drama.
‘Scene hangers’ are one way to do it. They’re lines set at the end of a scene or chapter that tempt the reader to read on. Most great stories contain scene hangers, though they might not be obvious.

The device became popular in the mid-19th century when many novels were sold in monthly instalments and readers had to be teased, at the end of each instalment, to buy the next one.

But scene hangers are used even today, in virtually every genre.

Here is the concluding part of this piece.

#4. Drop in a deceptively casual remark
Of course, the man was a fool.

The very casualness of the remark cues the reader to disbelieve it. Clearly, the man is not a fool. What will he do next?

#5. Introduce a threatening character
Bill arrived. He was 6ft 4 in of walking menace.

Or a provocative character: Jane wafted into the room. If ever Nature abhorred a vacuum, it was her.

End the scene there. We’ll read on, simply to learn more about these interesting people.

#6. Give a summary
I’d done [this], and [that], and [that], and nothing had worked. The problem was turning into a crisis.

Remind the reader periodically of events that have gone before. (Maybe they’ve picked up your story again after a long time.) You can use a terse summary—one that implies the question ‘What now?’— as both a reminder and a scene hanger.

#7. ‘Zoom out’ of the scene
And great shaggy flakes of snow began to fall.

Crime novelist Ruth Rendell ended an award-winning story with that exact phrase. It meant little, but signified closure. It lifted the reader out of the story to give a cosmic perspective.

But a ‘zoom out’ need only be a temporary closure. If your previous lines posed a big question, the reader still yearns for the question to be resolved in the next scene.

#8. Close on a climax, unresolved, then switch the story line
The man was armed./England in March can be very cold.

What has the English climate got to do with an armed man? To find out, we must keep reading.

Or insert a flashback.

And I remembered how it had been, those nineteen years before.

How had it been? Close the scene there and the promised flashback teases us into the next scene.

#9. Use progressively shorter sentences to heighten the pace, then cut
The rat crept closer, its red eyes flickering at me, its tail whipping against the wall. Its teeth held something white and putrid. A human hand.

Who could fail, at that point of climax, to read on?

Try to follow a fast scene with a slow one. And vice versa. A good story should sustain a balance of tension and tranquillity, like the beating of a heart.

But be sure to end a chapter on a brisk or intriguing note. Otherwise, the reader may lay the story down, lulled to sleep, never to return.

#10. Show the passage of time
And the old clock on the wall, silent for 50 years, began to tick.

Remind the reader continually that the narrator is battling against time. End your most tense scenes with some reference to the clock. Or a calendar page. Or a countdown…

Obviously, this trick works well in crime or adventure stories but it can be used in any genre at moments when you want to quicken the suspense.



When writing fiction, or reading it, what scene hangers have you discovered? Please share your thoughts below. Every comment gets a fast, helpful reply.

About the author:

Dr John Yeoman, PhD Creative Writing, is a top-rated Amazon author. He judges the Writers’ Village story competition and is a tutor in creative writing at a UK university. He has been a successful commercial author for 42 years.