: I am thinking how can I create an effect in the story to make my readers constantly ask the question, how will this end?, like the novels I mentioned above. The relevant concept here

@Michele605

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I am thinking how can I create an effect in the story to make my readers constantly ask the question, how will this end?, like the novels I mentioned above.

The relevant concept here is that of the driving question. The driving question of your story is the one that readers expect to learn the answer to at the end, and is a bit more specific than just "How will this all end?" The driving question of Harry Potter is, "Will Harry fulfil his destiny and defeat Lord Voldemort?" The driving question of a romance novel is, "Will they get together at the end?" Depending on how your story is structured, there may be multiple different driving questions at different points.

Judging from your synopsis, the main driving question of your novel is, "Will the protagonist find her inner self?" As long as your readers continue to care about the answer to that question, they will continue to read your novel. The only advice I can give you on how to do that, is to make sure your story is well-written and your heroine is sympathetic and relatable. Beware the Eight Deadly Words: "I don't care what happens to these people." (Beware also TV Tropes, it's a massive time sink.)

I disagree that there will be no suspense in your novel. It obviously won't be as tense as a thriller novel like The Da Vinci Code, but there will still be the suspense of what the answer to the driving question will be. The trick to maintaining this suspense is to make sure that answer isn't totally obvious. There will be times where it looks like she'll succeed, and times where it looks like she'll fail, but only at the climax will she finally succeed or fail for good.

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