Anticipation is the “secret sauce” of successful storytelling.

From the back cover blurb to the first page, all the way through to the end, tension and anticipation are the forces that create reader investment and keep readers scrolling/turning pages. But as writers, we don’t tend to think in terms of what we’re giving the reader to anticipate every word, every scene, every step of the way.

Readers respond to early story exposure by starting to build the story in their minds. If that story excites them, they’ll read on. If not, they won’t. The trick is to deliver what they anticipate but not exactly, to both deliver on the story’s promises and offer meaningful, sometimes enormous, surprises along the way.

Tension comes, in part, through those surprises, the little and big ways we subvert our readers’ expectations, the delights and devastations we offer that could not have been anticipated.

Most commercial fiction offers reliable elements that guide the reader’s anticipation and promises ultimate story satisfaction.

Examples:        

• The murder solved in a murder mystery.

• The couples’ happily ever after in a romance.

• The bad guys vanquished, bomb defused in a thriller.

• The destination reached and kingdom saved in a fantasy.

• The termination of hostile alien forces or reckoning with our own role as the hostile force in science fiction.

In more literary/upmarket types of fiction, the anticipated outcome might be the change in the main character, both in their outlook and their life circumstances by story’s end.

Of course, most great fiction offers many different opportunities for anticipation, including:

• Resolution of story problems.

• Changes within the world(s) of the story.

• Changes within the main character, secondary characters, and/or antagonists, including how characters see their pasts, heal their backstory wounds, reveal lies they’ve been told or have told themselves.

• Changes in the relationships between any of the above, including how characters perceive one another, how they heal their relationship dysfunctions and misbeliefs, how they break apart in the face of that dysfunction.

• Changes within other life circumstances of the main character, secondary characters, and/or antagonists.

• Changes to the characters’ physical locations.

• Opportunities to learn, in an entertaining manner, about worlds, big and small, that are different from what we regular experience.

• Delivery or subversion of genre expectations.

• On a micro level, anticipation also threads into in every chapter, every scene, and every sentence.

WHAT ARE YOU INVITING THE READER TO ANTICIPATE?

STORY WORLDS: What are those worlds? What changes? How are you creating anticipation in the reader where that world is concerned? What can the reader anticipate learning?

PROTAGONIST(S): What inner and outer changes will the reader anticipate for them? What story and other problems will they solve? What values do they begin with that the reader will anticipate seeing change?

SECONDARY CHARACTERS/ANTAGONIST(S):  In what ways do they change? In what ways do they interfere in the protagonist’s journey? Do they ultimately reject or accept the protagonist (and the protag’s desires) or vice-versa? What changes should the reader look for in their relationships?

PLOT AND SUBPLOTS/STORY PROBLEMS:  What are the main issues in the story that need to be resolved? What mysteries need to be solved or revealed? What battles need to be fought and where might your character(s) be better off surrendering?

SCENE LEVEL ANTICIPATION: How clear is it what the protagonist (and/or viewpoint character) wants and what their strategy is for achieving/obtaining/reaching that thing? What happens during and at the end of the scene to create anticipation of future scenes to come?

GENRE EXPECTATIONS: What familiar beats/tropes are expected by your reader. In what ways do you deliver those? In what ways does your story veer but offer commensurate satisfaction to the reader’s anticipation?

Look at everything in your story, from your overall premise to your opening line and ask what you’re giving the reader to look forward to, what story you’re inviting them to build in their mind, and how you can ultimately offer something that both satisfies and exceeds their greatest expectations.