Making your story a page turner - part one

The first of many posts about different ways to keep your story propelling forward.

Hello! When I started this Substack a month ago I very much wanted to only put things behind a paywall that I thought would actually be worth paying for. I can’t bear grifters and I don’t want to be one. So I’m happy to have received this message from new subscriber Henry, who said my Substack has come at a good time for him, because:

‘I’m at the very early stage of writing a book about how my parents joined a cult when I was a kid. One of my guiding principles is not to make it a misery memoir, but something people actually want to read. A page turner.’

I was pleased to read this because I’ve spent a lifetime thinking about this very thing - how to write nonfiction page turners, books that people will want to read on beaches, no matter how serious the subject. There are big ways to do it, like having life-threatening or at least stupid adventures, and lots of small ways too, which can be just as gripping.

So this is the first in a series of (every Sunday) posts about creating page turners, starting with…