Every reader has them.
Those little things that show up in a book description and immediately make you think:
Well, apparently I’m reading this now.
I can have an entire TBR waiting for me. I can have plans. Responsibilities. A perfectly reasonable intention to finish the book I’m already reading.
Then someone mentions the right combination of characters, tension, danger, and questionable decisions.
My plans are canceled.
Not officially, obviously.
I’m just suddenly very busy.
So today, instead of pretending I have any self-control around books, I thought I’d share a few things that will almost always get my attention.
1. A Morally Grey Character Who Actually Earns the Grey
We’ve established that I have a weakness here.
But I don’t want someone who’s called morally grey simply because he wears black, has tattoos, and occasionally glares at people.
Give me choices.
Give me conflict.
Give me someone capable of doing something terrible for a reason that makes me sit there thinking:
I don’t agree with you.
Pause.
But I understand.
That’s when you’ve got me.
Bonus points if the character is absolutely convinced they don’t have feelings while spending half the book making decisions entirely because of their feelings.
Sir.
We can all see you.
2. A Strong Heroine Who Is Allowed to Be a Mess
I love strong women in books.
But I don’t need them to be invincible.
Actually, please don’t make them invincible.
Let her screw up.
Let her get angry.
Let her be afraid.
Let her make the wrong choice and have to deal with it.
Let her occasionally need someone else.
Strength is much more interesting when it isn’t perfection.
Give me a woman who can stand on her own but eventually realizes that standing on your own doesn’t mean you have to stand alone.
I’m there.
3. Slow-Burn Tension That Makes Me Question My Life Choices
You know what I’m talking about.
They haven’t kissed.
They haven’t admitted anything.
They might not even particularly like each other yet.
But one of them reaches past the other person for something and suddenly we’re all staring at the page like:
EXCUSE ME.
Nothing happened.
Everything happened.
This is the ridiculous magic of tension.
I don’t necessarily need characters immediately falling into bed together.
Sometimes I want them to suffer first.
Lovingly.
4. Enemies Who Have Extremely Inconvenient Feelings
Enemies to lovers works for me when the enemies part actually matters.
I want history.
Conflict.
Reasons they genuinely don’t trust each other.
I don’t want:
“I hate you.”
“Why?”
“You took my parking spot once.”
We’re going to need more than that.
Give me two people who have every reason to stay on opposite sides and then force them into a situation where they slowly discover the other person isn’t quite who they thought.
Then make them realize they’re attracted to each other at the worst possible moment.
Beautiful.
Everyone is miserable.
Continue.
5. “Touch Her and Die”
Is it healthy?
We aren’t discussing that.
Is it reasonable?
Also not the point.
Does some primitive reader part of my brain occasionally enjoy a fictional man calmly informing someone that harming the woman he loves would be an extraordinarily poor life decision?
Unfortunately, yes.
I contain multitudes.
Again, fictional standards and real-life standards are allowed to occupy completely different zip codes.
6. Found Family
This one gets me every time.
Give me characters who didn’t have anyone.
Then slowly give them people.
Not because they’re related.
Not because fate declared it.
Because they chose each other.
The grumpy character who starts protecting everyone while insisting they aren’t friends.
The person who has never had somewhere safe to go suddenly realizing there’s a seat waiting for them at the table.
The group of disasters who would absolutely bury a body for each other while arguing the entire time about the correct way to do it.
I love them.
7. Secrets That Actually Change Things
I want a reveal that matters.
Not:
“I’ve been keeping something from you.”
Gasp.
“I hate broccoli.”
Give me the secret that changes how I understand everything that came before it.
Make me mentally flip backward through the book.
Make some tiny comment from twelve chapters ago suddenly click into place.
Make me whisper:
That sneaky little…
And then immediately keep reading.
That is the good stuff.
Bonus: Banter That Is Basically Foreplay
I couldn’t leave this one out.
Give me two intelligent characters who know exactly how to annoy each other.
Sharp dialogue.
Little challenges.
Inside jokes that develop before either one realizes they’re developing inside jokes.
The moment an argument shifts slightly and suddenly everyone, including the characters, realizes this conversation is not really an argument anymore.
Yes.
Thank you.
I’ll take another chapter.
Apparently I Have a Type
Looking at this list, there appears to be a theme.
Complicated people.
Strong women.
Questionable men.
Danger.
Secrets.
Tension.
Chosen family.
People developing feelings at deeply inconvenient times.
Basically, I want characters to struggle emotionally for several hundred pages and eventually find something worth holding onto.
Which, now that I think about it, explains quite a bit about the books I write too.
Funny how that works.
So if you ever wonder what will make me immediately pick up a book?
Give me characters I can care about.
Make their choices difficult.
Give them something real to lose.
Then sprinkle in a little danger, a few terrible coping mechanisms, some unbearable romantic tension, and at least one person lying to themselves about being in love.
I’ll bring the coffee.