: Re: People like my book, starting halfway through This is kind of an alternate take on my other recent question, as well as the inverse problem to this question. I've been told by more than one

Often books take a while to get into when they have a slow start, when not much is happening for the first part of the novel. However, you say that's not the case with you - you have plenty of action.

I would therefore surmise that the problem is exactly the one you point out in your other question: readers are not particularly invested in your MC. If readers don't care about your MC, it doesn't matter that there's action - the readers have no stake in it. Imagine reading that some two celebrities you've never heard of had a breakup - it doesn't matter how dramatic the breakup was, if you have no idea who those celebrities are, you couldn't care less. That's the position you're putting your readers into.

What to do? Make the MC more compelling, give us a reason to care. How? First and foremost, I think, make his internal monologue interesting. Make him someone we'd want to listen to. Maybe he has a unique view on things, maybe he's witty, maybe he's particularly observant, maybe something else - we're supposed to listen to him talk, so it'd better be good. Second, give him some compelling trait. Maybe it's his sense of humour. Maybe it's his audacity. Maybe he's a gentle and devoted son. Anything. The moment we have a reason to care about the MC, the action and conflict would come into focus, and the whole novel would be much more engaging.

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: What is genre, and why should we care? Here I came upon an argument about whether a particular grouping is a genre, or a marketing term. Which made me wonder - what is genre? How strict

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: There are more things you can do with stakes than escalate ad nauseam. First, you can vary the threat. For example, Buffy jokes more than once about "saving the world again". The difference

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: How to describe a character who is sick from trauma? I would just like symptoms and/or adjectives about a character when they might suddenly get sick because of a traumatic experience. I just

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: How can I indicate that a particular relationship between two male characters is purely brotherly (Philia) rather than romantic (Eros)? One of the four forms of love Greek philosophy recognised,

: Re: People like my book, starting halfway through This is kind of an alternate take on my other recent question, as well as the inverse problem to this question. I've been told by more than one

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: What is genre, and why should we care? Here I came upon an argument about whether a particular grouping is a genre, or a marketing term. Which made me wonder - what is genre? How strict

: There are more things you can do with stakes than escalate ad nauseam. First, you can vary the threat. For example, Buffy jokes more than once about "saving the world again". The difference

: How to describe a character who is sick from trauma? I would just like symptoms and/or adjectives about a character when they might suddenly get sick because of a traumatic experience. I just

: How can I indicate that a particular relationship between two male characters is purely brotherly (Philia) rather than romantic (Eros)? One of the four forms of love Greek philosophy recognised,

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