: Re: What Can Ensure Re-Readability? I've come across some answers and questions on this site which have gotten me thinking about re-readability. It isn't something that I think about much, but now

@Cofer669

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Engaging the reader's imagination, usually through building a complex world and characterization. Your plot happens the way your story describes it. Re-reading a plot usually gives nothing new to a reader unless they either forgot or missed details from the first reading of a story.

On the other hand, even though characters perform the same actions when re-read, the motivations of why they performed those actions, especially actions that require difficult choices, depends on the characters personality and motivations. The motivations of characters are usually implied and not explicitly explained to the reader. They are instead implied by the actions those characters perform during the story.

When a story is re-read, the reader, who has already built in their mind the scenery of your story, will pay more attention to non-obvious details of the story such as the motives or thoughts that a character may have, especially when the character makes make difficult decisions.

During a re-read, your readers may consider why you chose to have the plot takes the path it does, why you have written a story in a particular style, what it would be like to actually live in the world you create, or what one of the characters in the story might do in a situation other than the ones you describe. These are all ways that allow a reader to use their imagination to more fully enjoy the re-reading of a story. Since they allow the reader to engage their imagination in a creative way, the re-read is also a more active form of reading than the initial read.

If you write stories in a way that encourages readers to engage their imagination about your world, or to speculate about un-written details about the motivations, history, or personalities of your characters, you will also be encouraging readers to re-reading that story.

I speculate that the authors that do this well create many more details than they actually reveal in their stories. This allows them to create worlds and characters that have hidden (unwritten) details, and they can then include subtle clues about those hidden details in their stories.

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