Hacker News Reader

Comment by harscoat | Hacker News Reader

... then OP, could you share this structure? "Soon the structure underlying The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons and The Lost Symbol was laying bare before my eyes. I could see why the stories worked. I had reverse-engineered Dan Brown."

View on HN

Multiple mcguffins, drip-feed expository dialogue and prose, cliff-hanger in 30 minute reading time chunks. Always keep at least one good mystery open. Start in media res, slow the pace for the second act, which is where you consolidate to accelerate to a frantic conclusion where you draw seemingly unrelated threads together. Essentially, give the reader a reason to keep reading, and to keep coming back.

It's not Brown's recipe, it's how pretty much all compelling fiction hangs together.

Well I never knew about McGuffins before. Every day's a school day :)

Pretty much, plus mini-cliffhangers at the end of each chapter. And tons of chapters. My novel has around 70, so roughly 5 pages on average. It helps keep the pace, and because of the psychological need to read "just one more chapter", it makes it a "page turner" or "a book you just can't put down".

If you read more than two Dan Brown books, honestly it's hard to not see this structure. I read The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, which were OK, but then reading Deception Point I could guess all the plot twists several chapters in advance. He's just very formulaic.

I suspect OPs spreadsheet is lacking the metadata that exists in their mind to be interpreted usefully.

Sure, sounds like a good idea for a follow-up post!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com