Tom had season tickets to the TCU home football games, but he didn’t always go. This week, Bill, his coworker in the next cubicle, invited him to see a movie instead. “No way,” Tom said. “This is the biggest game of the year. I’ve got to see who wins.”
“If that’s all you want,” Bill said, “you can get the score from the Sunday paper.”
“Sorry, friend, this game’s too important.” Tom didn’t stop to ask himself why the game mattered so much. He just knew he had to go.
With his team down seventeen points at the end of the third quarter, Tom picked up his umbrella and left.
On Monday, Bill stopped at Tom’s desk. “How about those Horned Frogs! Amazing game, wasn’t it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know? They came back in the fourth quarter and scored the winning touchdown with no time left on the clock.”
This scenario is typical, happening many times. It’s important to writers because it tells us something about human nature:
- Our story’s concept must be captivating enough to earn the right to the time readers might prefer to do something else.
- As soon as readers believe they know the outcome, they may not stay to the end.
- Those who leave early, not reading to the end, probably won’t know what they’ve missed.
- From the beginning, we must keep our stories interesting, with anticipation of a worthwhile reward at the end.
Keep readers in the game with conflict, making the story interesting, the outcome in doubt, with reason to believe the ending will be good.
