Reading: What Makes a Book Satisfying?

Last week, I posted about what makes a book unsatisfying (it’s all about a poor resolution–sorry, Eve). But pinning down what makes a book satisfying isn’t as simple as writing out a list of opposites. Sure, a book with a great wrap up might be a good read, but there’s more to a satisfying book than that.

Reading–moreover, enjoying–a book is a very subjective thing. So far this month, I’ve read just one completely satisfying book – Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief – which hit on all my favorite things. But the parts of a book I like (a lot of sensory detail, historical inclusions, world myths, dalek fight scenes, some tangents) may be quite different to the parts you like. Harder still, our patience and thresholds for enjoyment may be different. (I’m often willing to give a book at least one hundred pages before deeming it slow, but only call about 10% of what I read truly enjoyable.) Despite this, though, there are three easy ways to figure out if a book was satisfying or not:

• You think about the book for a while after you’ve finished it

• You talk about the book with friends, without using negative adjectives

• You look for a sequel/other books by the same author

Trusting the Reader

An inherent part of reading is trust. As I mentioned last week, readers trust that an author will reward their efforts, and provide a story worth reading all the way to the end. But, as my mother likes to say, trust is a two-way street.

It’s easy to pile everything on an author–after all, in Book Land, authors create, giveth, and taketh away. But a large part of writing is giving the reader credit, and assuming that he/she is neither dense nor stupid, and doesn’t require a summary or info dump every few pages. (This is especially true in YA.) But striking a balance between giving just enough information rather than too little or too much is difficult, even for the best authors (Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me is a great example of getting it right).

Although it’s not the only reason a book might be satisfying, having an author’s trust is definitely an important factor in a satisfying read. Much like a keystone, authorial trust holds everything in place. Why? Because readers are people–people who want (and deserve) to be respected not just for their intellect, but for putting in the effort to read a good book. When an author takes the leap–and it is a leap, because one of the greatest parts of being an author is being able to share our stories in the way we think they should be shared–and trusts the reader, three important things happen:

• Redundancy disappears

• Backstory becomes less of a focus/chore

• The story becomes more compelling because we have to work through it

And when an author doesn’t trust the reader to pick up hints and clues? Generally speaking, the writing becomes redundant, with not-so-obvious hints repeated every few pages, and characters taking turns spewing backstory and “necessary” info. Most of the time, this turns a potentially good book into a frustrating read because:

• The characters spend too long talking, and not enough time acting

• The writing is full of telling rather than showing

• Dialogue is stilted, or filled with forced reveals and backstory

• Adjectives are over-used in an attempt to draw attention to important information (usually information that was revealed earlier)

• It takes too long to slog past the history and get to where the story starts

Sometimes, though, these aren’t satisfaction-killers–it all depends on what the reader wants from a book. Danielle Steele, Queen of Redundancy, has a large dedicated following, possibly because the amount of redundancy in her books means a reader can pick them up and put them down willy-nilly, yet still keep up with the story.

Reasons we love a book

Of course, working through a story–like having an author’s trust–is just one part (albeit a very important part like, say the Mona Lisa’s smile) of the big picture. And not every satisfying book hits every one of the reasons listed below–which is okay, because every book, every story, and every author is different.

Reasons a book may stay with you after that last page turn:

• The clues lead up to a big–not obvious–aha! moment

• Characters act like themselves all the way up to the end, even when a situation is difficult

• The story ties into our humanity, playing on emotions (romantic subplots) or sense of justice (villains get comeuppance) &c.

• Plotlines come together in an unexpected way

• Everything resolves, but without a forced ending

• The story/characters challenge the way the reader thinks

• Subplots are resolved

• The story ties into familiar settings/uses the reader’s knowledge in some way

• The story wasn’t obvious/had to be worked through for the pay off

Working through the Story

Reading is fun, but, like most things, it’s actually more fun if everything is not handed to us on a silver platter. Most readers are drawn to stories with a puzzle to solve, or a kind of mystery. This doesn’t mean that mysteries are the only good fiction (though I do love a bit of Poirot on a rainy day), because almost all stories–or rather, almost all good stories–are mysteries, regardless of their genre.

No, not all stories involve murder or theft or pet abduction. But the majority of good, worthwhile stories do involve an element of discovery, some question or event we, as the reader, is drawn to solve. Sometimes, it’s an obvious, almost physical question (Whatever Happened to Cass McBride?) layered with other questions. Sometimes it’s less concrete than that (why does Holden think everyone else is a phony?), an exploration of the whys and hows of an author’s characters/world. But working through a story is compelling because we have to use our intelligence–and often because we learn something new along the way (Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief is a great example).

What have you read lately? Was it a satisfying read? Why?