Here’s something I find curious: you can have a book with witty characters being witty, zipping from one exotic locale to another, battling villains and falling in love…yet it feels like a whole bunch of nothing.
It’s weird, when you think about it. Things are absolutely happening. So how can it feel like nothing? 🤔
Stories often feel inert because the reader doesn’t have a question they’re dying to learn the answer to. As authors, it’s surprisingly easy to generate this inertia without realizing it.
When I’m drafting, I know what my characters are aiming for, and I know what cool thing is just around the corner, but if I haven’t triggered compelling questions for the reader, as far as they’re concerned, nothing much is happening at all.
Goals create motion—but only if the reader knows what they are.
Most writers understand that characters need goals. Scenes where no one wants anything tend to sag (and they’re often as boring to write as they are to read), but it’s not enough for the character to have a goal. That goal must be legible to the reader.
If the reader doesn’t know what the character is trying to do in this moment, the scene won’t generate momentum, no matter how witty the dialogue or how hair-raising the action. The scene fails to generate a key question: will the character succeed or fail? The reader won’t be asking this if they have no idea what the character’s trying to do.
Let’s resurrect our intrepid knight, Sir RidesALot.
We’ll dial back the clock and look at the days leading up to his lover, Sir Beloved, being chained in Count McFang’s castle, on the verge of an exceedingly unsexy vampiric transformation.
At this point in the story, we don’t yet know that Sir Beloved is missing.
The author, hoping to build suspense, throws us straight into what’s meant to be a fast-paced scene.
Sir RidesALot gallops into Count McFang’s territory, his steed foaming at the mouth. He scans the darkening woods for danger. Breaking through the tree line, Sir RidesALot slows, clopping down the desolate street of a village, its houses shuttered and silent.
Dammit, he shall have the answers he seeks!
He bangs on doors, questioning wary villagers. He trades barbed, witty banter with a suspicious innkeeper. All the while, he tortures himself over the argument he had with Sir Beloved the night before.
There’s movement. There’s atmosphere. Things are indubitably happening.
But I have no idea why Sir RidesALot is questioning these people. I haven’t a clue what he’s hoping to learn, or what would count as a useful answer. And because I don’t know what success looks like in this scene, any information he does uncover is unlikely to land with much force.
In fact, the author will probably have to halt the story to tell me why this information matters, which is about as effective as explaining the punchline of a joke.
Story-level goals anchor scene-level goals.
✍️ Let’s revise the scene and give Sir RidesALot a clear goal.
In this version, we know that he’s questioning the villagers because he’s desperate to learn as much as he can about Count McFang’s castle—its defenses, its layout, its haunted reputation.
Fantastic! This gives the scene direction. I know what Sir RidesALot wants in this moment.
And yet…as he amasses more and more intel, my interest starts to flag, because I still have no clue what problem this knowledge is meant to solve. Without knowing that Sir RidesALot is gathering this information in order to rescue Sir Beloved, this flurry of action starts to feel like busy work.
Whether the villagers describe the castle as impregnable, haunted, or overrun by Care Bears, nothing meaningfully changes. The scene goal is clear, but because it isn’t anchored to a compelling story-level goal, it feels inconsequential.
Questions generate momentum—but only when they converge.
Once the reader understands that Sir RidesALot is trying to rescue Sir Beloved, momentum comes from seeding additional questions. (Remember our basic story engine: what are they doing, and what’s gonna happen next?)
We don’t want to throw just any ol’ questions at the reader, though. Those questions must converge, with subsequent scenes tightening the knot. When they don’t, the story starts to sprawl, no matter how intriguing the individual threads may be.
As Sir RidesALot questions the villagers, gathering intel in hopes of rescuing Sir Beloved, the scene generates plenty of questions:
- Why is the castle said to be haunted?
- What deal did Count McFang strike with the neighboring lords?
- Why do travelers disappear on the eastern road?
- Who was the cloaked figure seen in the tower window the night Sir Beloved went missing?
Individually, these are interesting, but if, in the end, they have nothing to do with Sir RidesALot rescuing Sir Beloved—if they don’t clarify the danger, narrow the options, or affect his chances of success—then they’ll begin to feel like filler or loose ends.
This isn’t to say you can’t include material purely for worldbuilding or mood-setting. You absolutely can. But when too many details are introduced that don’t intersect with the scene or story goals, readers begin to lose trust. Instead of feeling rewarded for their close attention, they begin to wonder which details matter—and whether any of them do.
When a story relies solely on diffuse curiosity—on vibes, lore, and eeriness—without tying those questions to a clear goal or outcome, the reader may be intrigued, but that will only tug them forward for so long.
Without goals, the story stalls, and all the spooky forests, haunted castles, and shirtless knights in the world can’t save it. (The shirtless knights are still welcome to tag along, for the record.)
Scene goals turn information into vital clues instead of infodumps.
We brushed up against this idea earlier: without scene goals, the author often has to halt the story to explain why a piece of information is important.
Juicy story goals give rise to juicy questions—at a basic level, the question of, Will they succeed at their goal? And when a reader is already asking the question, getting the answer doesn’t feel like an infodump; it feels like a sought-after clue.
Let’s return to Sir RidesALot.
While he’s banging on villagers’ doors, the author pauses to tell us that Count McFang’s castle was built centuries ago atop unstable ground, its foundations reinforced unevenly over time. Apparently, there’s an old cistern beneath the keep, fed by underground springs that are no longer maintained, and one wing of the castle, predating the rest, is rumored to be sealed off. Servants come and go quickly, few lasting more than a season. Food deliveries arrive twice a week from nearby farms, and travelers avoid the eastern road, where people have a habit of disappearing.
✍️ If this info is trotted out with zero context the reader’s eyes rapidly glaze over, but let’s orient it in relation to Sir RidesALot’s goal of rescuing Sir Beloved:
Unstable ground, he thinks. That means weak points—possibly an entrance. Or my tomb, if I’m not careful. And the cistern beneath the keep? Water always finds a way through stone. Maybe it can show me the way in.
The sealed-off wing snags his attention next. If it’s been abandoned, it may be less guarded…or it could be where Sir Beloved is being held.
Servants who never last a season aren’t loyal; they’re afraid. Afraid people talk. Afraid people can be bought.
Twice-weekly food deliveries mean wagons. Gates that must open.
And the eastern road everyone avoids? That’s where patrols get lazy.
When details are tied to a clear goal, the reader isn’t just absorbing information; they’re actively assembling it, quietly asking, Could that work? What about this? feeling the thrill of recognition when later events confirm—or cleverly upend—their expectations.
What Really Keeps Readers Reading
All of this points to a paradox: a compelling mystery comes from clarity.
Curiosity isn’t created merely by withholding information. It’s generated by orienting the reader toward a meaningful question, and then making them wait to see how it’s answered. When the reader knows what the character is trying to do, and what’s at stake if they fail, their actions become charged.
It’s no longer busy work. Every scrap of information becomes a potential clue.
Without that orientation, withholding information doesn’t build suspense—it creates drift. The reader isn’t leaning forward, wondering what will happen next. They’re flipping pages, waiting for the story to tell them why any of this matters (or the book was abandoned chapters ago).
By giving your characters clear goals, planting compelling questions before supplying the answers, and ensuring those questions converge toward a meaningful outcome, you’re well on your way to crafting a page-turner.
After all that, you’d be forgiven for wanting to throttle me when I say this: clear goals are necessary, but they’re not enough. For a story that really moves, we need another vital ingredient.
I’ll see you next week!
