Metafictional Mumblings

My husband, Andrew, just finished The Fountainhead. I'd been bugging him to read it for a while because it's one of those books that comes up a lot in conversation. Actually, that's only true in the States. An admittedly non-scientific poll of British acquaintainces reveals that Ayn Rand's novel/manifesto may not have stormed these shores. At any rate, like nearly everyone I've ever spoken to who has read this book, Andrew agreed that it was one of the most compulsively readable books he'd ever encountered. Whatever you think of Ayn Rand's politics (and nowadays, I have to say it all feels a little quaint and outdated), it's a book that's hard to put down.As a writer of novels, this compulsive readability thing is of great interest to me. So I got to thinking. What is it exactly that keeps a reader turning pages? I know that when I bail out of a novel, it's because I no longer care what happens next. But what is it that makes a reader care? What is it, I asked Andrew over coffee this morning, that pulls a reader along? Inadvertent genius that he is, Andrew replied, "Are they pulled or pushed?"That's when it hit me. These are the two ways of keeping readers turning pages: pushing and pulling. You pull a reader forward by creating suspense (i.e., is the hero going to die or is she going to make it out of this thing alive?). You push a reader forward by creating empathy (i.e., if I were in this character's shoes I'd be doing exactly what she's doing). Pulling via suspense is a like a sadistic form of seduction. Pushing via emotional resonance is like passive agression.An example. In The Rise of Endymion, the grand finale of Dan Simmons' Hyperion series, the reader is assaulted by great waves of pushing and pulling. NOTE: STOP READING HERE TO AVOID SPOILER.On the one hand, we already know Aenea's fate but we can't yet figure out how Endymion can have a child with her. The promise of a resolution of that paradox is the suspense that pulls us along. Simultaneously, we are filled with tremendous dread and longing on behalf of Endymion who is in love with, let's face it, a doomed woman. Simmons has stoked the fires of empathy by creating emotional resonance with his character, Endymion. Like codependents, we can't stop going where he goes. That empathy is what pushes us forward. And it is this dual experience of pushing and pulling that makes reading The Rise of Endymion--especially the final chapters--such a gloriously, torturously, rapturously powerful experience.So in the interests of aping that glorious torture, I shall now return to pushing and pulling my eventual readers with sadistic seductions and manipulative empathy-building of my own.Ta.