By David E. Sharp
Last month on The Writing Bug, I talked about the value of genre and how it operates as a tool to help readers find the right books. While genre categorization can be a bit of a nuisance to writers who don’t like fitting into boxes, we can find ways to use it to our advantage.
This month, I would like to go beyond genre to hone in on the specific aspects of writing that resonate with readers. What makes you love a story? What experience do you seek when you browse the bookshelf? What lingers with you long after you finish the last page?
In the library world, we call these characteristics appeal factors.
Appeal factors are different from genres, but we use them toward a similar goal: guiding readers to the books they will enjoy most. A reader may gravitate toward mystery novels. The question is, what do they expect to find there. Gritty urban cityscapes and exploring unsavory secrets. Quirky characters in a cozy setting for a casual who-dun-it. A series based on eccentric detectives solving murders with a cat will have a different set of appeal factors from, say, Scandinavian crime fiction.
Narrowing down your appeal factors can be a helpful tool to strengthen your writing and resonate with your readers. By day, I am a kindly librarian, and by night, I agonize over the blank page like all writers. In my day job, I use NoveList, a phenomenal reader advisory database you likely have access to through your library.
NoveList is a database created by librarians that matches readers to books they might enjoy. Using broad search terms like similar titles and nitty-gritty details like tone or style, NoveList is an exciting tool that can be applied to improving your writing in addition to recommending that perfect fit read.
Tone
The tone of your writing is the lens through which readers experience your story. Tone speaks directly to the experience you are trying to provide, and knowing the tone of your book can help you promote it to the right readers.
The tone is all about the emotional aspect of the story. A coming-of-age story might be heartwarming, whereas a dystopian novel might be described as bleak. Every story will present an array of emotions throughout, but these should accentuate a dominant emotional theme. The lighter notes in that dystopian tale are probably bittersweet due to the underlying gloom of the story.
Film and television often use musical scores to accentuate the emotional tone they want to convey. As writers, we primarily use language. However, think of tone as your emotional soundtrack. In that case, it can give you a pretty good idea of what kind of experience you’re creating.
A selection of fantasy novels as categorized in NoveList by tone:
- The Fellowship of the Ring: Dramatic
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Suspenseful
- Game of Thrones: Bleak
Writing Style
Writing Style is about the specific use of language in the book. While this may seem technical to be an appeal factor, it really makes a difference in the overall experience of the book. A writer can use a conversational style to welcome readers into a relaxed, informal story that is easy to read. However, a writer creating a police procedural or a thriller won’t want readers to feel relaxed. They might use a descriptive style to better immerse readers into their setting. They might use strained or clipped sentences to draw them to the edge of their seats. If the tone is the soundtrack of your writing, then the style is like song lyrics.
Two appeal factors with a strong synergy can create many combinations with subtle effects.
NoveList lists by style:
- The Fellowship of the Ring: Descriptive; Detailed World-building
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Compelling
- Game of Thrones: Compelling; Gritty
Storyline
This appeal factor is all about the engine driving the action. The characters in the story are responding to world-shaking events or overcoming their own demons. This story might be a platform for more significant societal issues. Or the story transports readers to another world.
Readers may prefer a particular kind of storyline and not even know it. A reader who loves character-driven fiction may read a best-selling plot-driven story and find it doesn’t resonate. Readers often say, “It just didn’t grab me.”
This is the unconscious refusal of that unspoken contract the audience agrees to when investing in a story.
For the writer, knowing what kind of storylines you offer may help you to provide comp titles with similar appeal. If you compare yourself to something with a very different storyline offering, you may be setting readers up for disappointment. But the converse is also true. Syncing up with comp titles that run on a similar engine may bring readers who will your story too.
NoveList’s storyline classifications:
- The Fellowship of the Ring: Intricately-Plotted
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Plot-Driven
- Game of Thrones: Character-Driven
Pacing
This appeal factor is all about the engine driving the action. The characters in the story are responding to world-shaking events or overcoming their own demons. This story might be a platform for more significant societal issues. Or the story transports readers to another world.
Readers may prefer a particular kind of storyline and not even know it. A reader who loves character-driven fiction may read a best-selling plot-driven story and find it doesn’t resonate. Readers often say, “It just didn’t grab me.”
This is the unconscious refusal from that unspoken contract the audience agrees to when investing in a story.
For the writer, knowing what kind of storylines you offer may help you to provide comp titles with similar appeal. If you compare yourself to something with a very different storyline offering, you may be setting readers up for disappointment. But the converse is also true. Syncing up with comp titles that run on a similar engine may bring readers who will your story too.
The final appeal factor to consider is pacing. Some readers want a quick read, and others want something that will hold their attention for weeks. This is one of the most straightforward appeal factors, and you likely know where you land on the scale. This factor is also most directly influenced by the genre. Very few high-concept fantasy novels are considered a quick beach read.
Likewise, your cozy cat-solving mystery doesn’t need the word count that extensive world-building requires.
NoveList describes these speed limits:
- The Fellowship of the Ring: Leisurly-Paced
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Fast-Paced
- Game of Thrones: Intensifying Pace
Author’s note: The following discussion may induce family arguments, scholarly debate, and aggravated assault.
I chose these novels for comparison because they are all fantasy novels. And these novels are all written for different aged audiences, so that affects the appeal factors. But as readers, we all know often it doesn’t matter when it comes to our choices.
The Fellowship of the Ring is the first installment in Tolkien’s legendary The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is a dramatic story set in a lush world with detailed descriptions. Readers must be willing to embark on a long, leisurely-paced journey through Tolkien’s intricate plot.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is a suspenseful story told with a compelling style. Buckle up, readers. It’s a generous word count that commands momentum through a plot-driven story that readers of all ages have devoured.
For readers who don’t mind a love/hate relationship with a book series, we offer Game of Thrones, the first in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice saga. This is a bleak story with a potent and urgent style with a plot driven by unpredictable characters whose drama moves the story at an intensifying and, many would argue, aggravating pace.
It’s not all wizards, wands, and wyverns. When it’s all boiled down, faithful readers of any genre of books may have very different tastes.
If we plug our preferences into NoveList, it’s interesting to see how the algorithm finds connections.
The Fellowship of the Ring:
- The Pillars of The Earth by Ken Follett – A sweeping historical fiction set in the middle ages.
- Dune by Frank Herbert – A space opera steeped with political intrigue.
- The Serpent on The Crown by Elizabeth Peters – A murder mystery series set against the backdrop of 1920s Egypt.
Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone:
- The 5th Wave by Richard Yancey – A young adult, apocalyptic journey story set in the present.
- Peak by Roland Smith – A coming of age story involving the climb up Everest.
- Full Tilt by Neil Shusterman – A young adult, psychological horror story set in a carnival. (Or true tales from therapy.)
Game of Thrones:
- The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson – A gritty (this is actually gritty) and dark Scandinavian mystery.
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini – A sweeping tale of family and the women of Kabul.
- The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos – A period crime fiction novel about a palindromic serial murderer.
Readers of one book may not automatically love other books. But arguably, if we look at these factors, we see the more subtle connections of fantasy to different genres. Adventurous readers may find that a book about a fantasy-realm girl with dragons and a modern-day girl with dragon tattoos can offer a pretty good story.
The Writing Bug 
All of this is truly fascinating. Thanks for breaking things down in such an easy-to-understand manner.
LikeLike