Psychology of the Fiction Reader: How to Write Stories Readers are Obsessed With

Keep them turning the pages

Jul 14, 2025

Cultures all over the world throughout humanity’s history have told stories. From the prehistoric times when our first ancestors drew pictures on the walls of caves to the modern era of books, film, and animation. The technology has evolved, but the principle remains the same: stories are the collective soul of humanity. They are how we make sense of the world.

I enjoy a wide variety of fiction from across all cultures. Whether it’s African folklore, Eastern cultivation stories, Western mythologies, or folktales of the indigenous Americas or Pacific Islands, I want them all. As varied as they are, the common thread of the human experience links them all together.

You might come from the coldest region in the Arctic. But you’ll still feel connected to a story set in Tropical Africa. The world has changed a lot in the last five hundred years, and yet, we still enjoy stories written all those centuries ago. Why is that? Because the human experience is universal. Irrespective of your colour, religion, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or class, we all have emotions, we all crave good health and happiness, we all want to be treated fairly and with dignity, and we all want love and connection from the people we care about. This is the human experience, and stories make it accessible to all of us, no matter who we are or where we come from.

This is why we read fiction

When I take a novel, I want to get lost in a new world of wonder and splendour. I want to follow the character’s journey and see them endure all kinds of pain and obstacles, but also triumph over them. And above all, it’s not what happens to the protagonist, but who they become after that.

We all enjoy a great character arc. Whether the protagonist evolves from a timid person to a brave one who stands up for others. Or perhaps, a kind and well-intentioned character who becomes disillusioned by the world, thus descending into depravity. Wherever the story goes, we want to see the character’s evolution — what kind of choices they make given their circumstances.

Think about the time you read a novel. Not just any novel, but one that fully had your attention, such that you couldn’t put the book down. How did you feel? What were you thinking as you read it? Or perhaps, did you become so immersed that you even forgot it was just a book? It happens. I know I’ve experienced that.

They say books are the closest thing to a portal to another world, after all.

All this to say that people read fiction because they enjoy it. Unless you’re being forced at school to read certain books for academic purposes, you read solely out of pleasure. Maybe you randomly took the book because the cover attracted you. And then once you began reading, you couldn’t stop.

Now, try to remember the time you took a book that bored the hell out of you. If you’re anything like me, you probably never finished it. My philosophy is quite simple: Life is too short to waste time reading what you don’t enjoy. I’m sorry, but as much as I love reading, I’m not going to invest more time in a book I don’t like.

Maybe you feel the same. Or maybe, you’re the type to slog through it because you can’t bear to not finish, no matter how bored you are. Whatever the case, it’s quite clear that reading is purely out of self-interest.

If you’re a writer, this is liberating news.

People who read your work aren’t doing you any favours

It took me a long time to finally come to terms with this idea. When I first started writing, I would send out chapters of my stories to friends and family, imploring them to read my book and tell me what they thought about it. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that.

But if you have to force people to read your story to the end when they clearly don’t want to, then you’re doing it all wrong.

Readers aren’t doing you any favours when they read your book. Even if you told a friend to read your story, the moment they find it intriguing and can’t pull themselves away from it, it’s no longer about you. It is purely about them. About their entertainment. Sure, they started by doing you a favour, but in the end, they got something out of it.

This is the psychology of the reader. An interesting story captures their full attention, making the whole activity worthwhile. A boring book is a landmine, and many a reader will run far away from it.

So, here’s the million-dollar question.

How do you write fiction that readers are obsessed with?

If people read purely out of self-interest, how do you invoke their interest in your book, and keep them coming back for more? “How do I create a page-turner?”

Simple. Do not write boring stories.

But how? You ask.

Many elements are necessary for making a book a page-turner. But they can all be stripped down to the three most basic principles.

1. Create characters with emotional depth

It’s not enough to merely have characters in your story. They need emotional depth that makes them feel like real people to the reader. How to write such characters is beyond the scope of this article. However, you can do that by giving them desires or goals, motivations (why they want those goals), strengths and flaws, and letting them make hard choices as a test of their character.

2. Add conflict and stakes

A collection of events does not a story make. When a story bores a reader, it’s often because nothing is happening. The characters merely exist, doing things no one cares about. There are no obstacles in their way, and they’re able to just do whatever they want.

That’s just boring. If you want people to actually care about your character’s journey, you must put hurdles in their way as they work towards their goals. Anything that makes it harder for your protagonist (and other characters) to achieve their goals is conflict. That’s it. Anything or anyone can be a source of conflict. Hell, it can even come from the protagonists themselves. For example, their limiting beliefs about themselves or the world. In that case, they will have to strive to overcome those limiting beliefs so they can get where they want.

But despite the conflict in their way, something must keep them going to accomplish those goals. These are the stakes. Stakes show why a certain goal matters. In other words, what are the consequences if the character fails to achieve their goal? Say the protagonist has to defeat the villain. What will happen if the villain wins instead? Will people lose their jobs or livelihoods? Or worse, will people die? The stronger the stakes, the greater a character’s motivation to accomplish their goal.

3. The story must progress

I’ve read a lot of books on serial fiction sites like Wattpad and Inkitt. These sites often get a bad rep for having poorly written books. That may be true, but they have many great books too. I’ve read my fair share of both kinds, and one key thing stands out when it comes to what makes a book boring:

Boring books often have no progress. Nothing substantial is happening in the story — it’s a cacophony of events with zero purpose and direction.

Page-turners have a strong sense of progress. One thing, often a choice made by a character, leads to a consequence, which leads to a complication, then further complications, and so on until tensions reach the highest point (climax). Without a sense of progress, the story feels like a bunch of random, insignificant happenings. Clear progress, on the other hand, keeps readers hooked from page one until the very end.

Putting it all together

To write a page-turner, these principles must not be viewed in isolation, but must go together. As characters face problems and take action to solve them, they must face conflict with high stakes at hand. When done effectively, it will deepen their emotional depth. And of course, the choices characters make are what lead to the sequence of events like a domino.

Character and plot are two sides of the same coin. The choices of characters unfold the plot, thus bringing progress. And the stronger you develop your characters, the more real and intimate they feel to readers.

When this is lacking in a book, the story feels off. Even if readers can’t tell why, they can intuitively tell something is wrong. And this is why they put away boring books. The opposite reason is also why readers get obsessed with certain books. It’s because the story has been crafted in such a way that the reader simply can’t put it down.

Get my novels.