The traits of addictive prose

[AllisterGrim]

One of the things I love to do is read various works and try to dissect the elements, prose especially. Some prose is serious, some flowery, some very very clever. But the writers that I am most intrigued by are those that have a knack for writing addictive prose.

Addictive prose isn't necessarily "good" prose. Most of the time you find it in the kind of writing that's pure junk food. You know the kind. That pulp fiction you read on the subway. The guilty pleasure you turn to when you are tired of "serious" fiction. Sure you'll forget the story two minutes after you read it, but while you have the book open, you can't stop yourself from turning pages.

The funny thing is that I find it very hard to put my finger on why certain work is so "addictive" to read. Some books seem to achieve that effect by being very minimalist in style, which usually makes the book have a faster pace. Some writers seem to have this way of building in suspense to their work. They tickle your curiosity, and get you to the point where you are desperate for information or description.

What characteristics do you find make prose addictive? Is there a certain style that you're a sucker for?

[DeleyanLee]

The only characteristic I've seen is that it's extremely easy to read prose. No thought is required to understand what a sentence is saying or how everything connects together. My conscious mind takes a vacation and the words just carry me along and sweeps me into the story being told.

[Devil Ledbetter]

Does this mean it's a bad thing that all of my betas finished my novel in a two or three sittings?

One read it straight through in 7 hours.

[Charlie Horse]

Does this mean it's a bad thing that all of my betas finished my novel in a two or three sittings?

One read it straight through in 7 hours.

Why would that be a bad thing? Sounds like they couldn't put your ms down.

[Brighid]

I don't know if I can adequately describe it either, but I'll throw in my own thoughts.

I generally have at least two, sometimes three, books that I am currently reading. One is my lunchtime book - it's usually something that's easy to read in the midst of restaurant noise or office interruptions. Currently it's a series of detective novels. The prose is light and easy to comprehend. It has a conversational tone to it.

The books I read at home tend to be a bit more. . .either the writing is more intellectual (for lack of a better word) or it takes more concentration to comprehend or follow.

I wouldn't say that prefer one over the other. Both types serve their purpose. They're just different.

[IceCreamEmpress]

I think page-turners are usually page-turners not because of the prose, but because of the plot.

[Danthia]

I'd have to agree with the ICEmpress. I don't think it's so much the prose as the story, and easy to read or fun prose on top of a great story is a one-two punch that wins every time. I've read plenty of novels that had great prose but bad stories and I didn't get very far in them.

[icerose]

Page turners for me general have to have an exciting story with characters I care about. If the prose is also magical and easy to read it's a perfect combination and almost always ends up having been a best seller. (Yeah, I'm that behind on the reading.)

But I do agree more often it's the story behind the prose than the prose itself that makes for a page turner, though bad prose can flub up the best of stories.

[Fresie]

Funny, I've been asking myself the same question just lately and I think I've got the answer :).

If we're talking about the prose, not the story behind it, then I've noticed that all page-turners have one thing in common -- the writing itself is extremely active, vivid and to the point. All the words in a piece of addictive prose are hand-picked but simple, they create a 3-D picture, a movie. It may be pulp fiction, or intellectual, or suspense, but the writer doesn't use any more words than absolutely necessary for the story.

Some books have exciting plots, but they're drowned in irrelevant wordiness. At the same time, you can write a page-long sentence and still be precise and create a breathtaking illusion of real life by simply using active, straightforward words.

[Jake Barnes]

Donald Maass says the secret is to "have tension on every page."

[JJ Cooper]

Concise writing.

JJ

[Haphazard]

Funny, I've been asking myself the same question just lately and I think I've got the answer :).

If we're talking about the prose, not the story behind it, then I've noticed that all page-turners have one thing in common -- the writing itself is extremely active, vivid and to the point. All the words in a piece of addictive prose are hand-picked but simple, they create a 3-D picture, a movie. It may be pulp fiction, or intellectual, or suspense, but the writer doesn't use any more words than absolutely necessary for the story.

I would have to agree with that. In fact, that perfectly sums it up.

The most addictive books I've ever read are Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and those are traits that these books have, despite the strange plot-lines and the dry sense of humor.

[KarlaErikaCal]

Addictive prose to me is something that just transports me into the world the author has created. I can't get enough of experiencing what the characters do. I love books whose words offer a lot to the effect I like from the story.

[wayndom]

Generally speaking, suspense is the common denominator of all addictive prose. Readers can't put it down because they want to know how the conflict (or desire) is going to be resolved.

Adding to addictiveness is sympathetic characterization. If you relate to and like the character who's going through the conflict, you go from wanting to know what'll happen to needing to know.

Finally (but least important of the three) is clear, unambiguous writing. Nothing is quite so addictive as a likable character in an edge-of-your-seat suspenseful situation, written so directly that your eyes glide over the prose without even noticing that you're reading.

My fave example of addictive writing is Sho-Gun. I read it at work, and when I got off work and drove home, I picked it up at every stop light and read until the car behind me beeped because the light had changed and I hadn't noticed. Although it's well over a thousand pages, I was bitterly disappointed to see the end coming. Clavell wrote in a series of cliffhangers. He put his protag in a nearly impossible, do-or-die situation, and before the situation is resolved, put them in another cliffhanger.

It's a transparent way of creating "un-put-down-able" fiction, but it works big time.

[LaceWing]

I just started DeLillo's The Names, and am savoring it slowly. I don't want to miss too many of its nuances.

It may have only 339 typed pages, but there seem to be another 100 pages implied.

[maestrowork]

I don't know if there's such a thing as "addictive prose" for me. Yes, there are prose that is so well-written that I love to read it again just to see the beauty of it. I have read "addictive passages" but they have more to do with the dialogue, characters and plot than the prose itself.

[LaceWing]

DeLillo again:

pg 1: "What ambiguity there is in exalted things. We despise them a little."

pg 5: re Greece -- "Americans used to come to places like this to write and paint and study, to find deeper textures. Now we do business."

pg 6: "It is like the Empire," said Charles Maitland more than once. "Opportunity, adventure, sunsets, dusty death."

The language is simple, it's used to describe the narrator's setting and state of mind (pg 1 and 5) and to characterize and foreshadow (pg 6). And it does all this with ideas of considerable scope.

I wish I'd discovered DeLillo earlier. Or maybe not; I'd rather read than write when it's this good.

[Raphee]

For me addictive is, great characters, story, tragedy and humor mixed, endings that are ambigous or at least unclear till the climax.