What Can Ensure Re-Readability?

Question

I've come across some answers and questions on this site which have gotten me thinking about re-readability. It isn't something that I think about much, but now that I consider it, I think it could be the difference between buying a book and simply checking it out of the library.

I will skip over the debate on whether or not you want re-readability in your novel. Instead, I'd like to focus on the following question:

Assuming you want your novel to be read multiple times, what can you do to make it re-readable?

Does it come down to some sort of plot technique? Perhaps something to do with the characters? Is it about hiding things that the reader discovers with every new read-through? What makes/can help a novel be re-readable?

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To future viewers: While I've marked Mark's answer, I would like to make sure you see the answer from SaberWriter as well. He has an excellent breakdown which should be quite useful when planning your novel.

Answer 1

A book can be a puzzle or it can be an experience. If it is an interesting puzzle, and you are the kind that likes puzzles, the puzzle may pull you through to the end. But once you reach the end, the puzzle is solved. There is no reason to read the puzzle again once you know the answer.

An experience, on the other hand, is enjoyable as a whole. If you have a profound experience reading a book, you will want to have that same experience again in the future. More specifically, you will from time to time wish to have that old experience again rather than some new experience that you might get from reading a new book.

I think there are all kinds of discrete techniques for making books that are puzzles. But I think that making books that are experiences is about overall excellence of execution. To date, at least, we have not managed to reduce all human accomplishment to repeatable techniques. Much still depends on tacit knowledge or what we might more vaguely call sensibility. One develops that sensibility, that capacity for excellence of execution, by immersion in the art.

But immersion in the art is not enough either. Lots of people have immersed themselves in the art and not emerged as artists. There is some other ingredient as well. The nearest I can come to naming it is vision. Where that comes from, I don't know. And I wish there was a way to tell if you have it or not, but I don't think there is. (I would really like to know if I have it so I could direct my energies appropriately.) But whatever it is, there is not anything that can be reduced to a repeatable technique.

EDIT: This edit is to capture something that came up in comments to a answer that has since been deleted. We don't always want to reread a book that we thought was good, or even great. Often our reaction is that we want more of the same -- more by the same author, more with the same setting, more with the same theme. It is like going on a scenic drive. You may see a superb view, but you don't loop around endlessly looking at it over and over again. In most cases, you drive on looking for the next great view.

So why do we go back to certain places over and over? Why do we read certain books over and over? A great experience is part of it. We would not go back if it were a lousy experience. But why go back instead of looking for other similar experiences? This is part intuition and part guess, but I think the answer may be comfort.

When we seek adventure, we head outward, towards the new and unknown. But when we seek comfort, we head home, to the familiar. A well loved book is a kind of home, a place of comfort. Different books may be comforting to different people, just as different places are comforting to different people.

Is there a recipe for making a book comforting? I doubt there is. Comforting is not the same thing as comfortable. I have stayed in many comfortable hotel rooms, but none of them were comforting. Home is comforting. Certain books are our literary homes and we return to them for comfort.

Answer 2

One aspect which has turned out to be really important to me lately: Stick the landing. By this I mean that the ending of the book has to be satisfying — it has to work with the story as a whole. (That doesn't always mean a happy ending, by the way; Brokeback Mountain is a deeply sad story, but the ending is appropriate.)

Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence was really great until literally the last 20 pages or so. Over the five books the heroes assemble and have to decipher a riddle. When the event which the riddle foretells happens, it is so completely mundane and anticlimactic that I actually dropped the book. It absolutely soured me on the whole series, and I'm sort of sorry I read it now. I won't read it again now that I know the macguffin is so ridiculous. It totally undercut the entire experience of the series.

So for me, the overall experience of the book (c.f. Mark Baker's answer) has to work as a whole. If 90% of it is good but the ending fails, I won't re-read the book. (Now, separately, I have read series of books where I liked the first one, or few, but disliked the last book, and I've tossed the end book/s and kept and reread the one/s I liked.)

Answer 3

1. Sentences that scan very well. (Very easy to read but does not mean a simple story) The scenes must play out on the "movie-screen of my mind". I am no longer reading, but instead watching the action unfold before me.
2. An extremely detailed plot layers of plot which make the reader think about what is going on at the character level (how it effects characters involved) and how it impacts the over all story. I mention this as detailed because I'm thinking about books I would want to read again. I might want to read a book again because the plot is so interesting that I want to "look" at it again.
3. likable characters (I do not like to watch shows with characters I don't like (unless they are the protagonists) and I definitely don't want to invest time in a story if I don't like the characters I'm reading about.
4. Characters who change and transform as the story plays out

That's pretty much it. If you were to actually write your book with all of those, I'm sure that no matter what the genre you would have a best seller.

Yes, More Details

Of course we could go into more detail, but get these as the foundation of your novel and you win.

Edit

I've come back to give some real examples of books I've read that meet the list above and are definitely books I'd like to read again (and have read more than once already.

• The Chocolate War (Robert Cormier) This book is so memorable and such fantastic writing and great characters.
• The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton) Another fantastic and memorable book
• The Partner (John Grisham) I don't like all Grisham books but this one moves fast has great characters and smooth writing.
• The Old Man & the Sea (Ernest Hemingway) One of my most disliked books of all time is by Hemingway, but this is one of the most memorable books I've read.
• The Pigman (Paul Zindel) Odd and memorable with a great meaningful plot and great characters

If you haven't read those books, read them all immediately.

Answer 4

One option is to add foreshadowing that readers don't notice on a first read, but can spot or appreciate on a second one. (This disagrees somewhat with another answer.)

Answer 5

I think a lot of people are hitting it on the head with the whole experience vs mystery solved situation solved. It's hard to watch something again after you know the mystery. The suspense loses it's edge, and many of the tricks used to keep people reading to find out more will have been spent for a second go through. In situations like this, you may want to look at something as Mark was saying about if you create a good mystery book, people will want to read more stories you did.

In terms of a story, I can't say that I have re-read any book I have come across, but I have re-watched some movies Hundreds (literally) of times. I would think that this is comparable because they both tell a story through a different medium. There are plenty of movies that after watching it, I really didn't find any desire to watch again. It was a good movie, but the experience wasn't one that when I see the title again, I go OOO that was good let me watch it again. Movies that are rewatched bring you into their world and help you to experience a great tale. I would think this sentiment applies too to books.

In the end, a story is a journey through someone's fantasy that they want to share with you (assuming it is a fantasy/fiction story). If it's enjoyable, they will want to relive that fantasy over and over again.

Answer 6

Engaging the reader's imagination, usually through building a complex world and characterization. Your plot happens the way your story describes it. Re-reading a plot usually gives nothing new to a reader unless they either forgot or missed details from the first reading of a story.

On the other hand, even though characters perform the same actions when re-read, the motivations of why they performed those actions, especially actions that require difficult choices, depends on the characters personality and motivations. The motivations of characters are usually implied and not explicitly explained to the reader. They are instead implied by the actions those characters perform during the story.

When a story is re-read, the reader, who has already built in their mind the scenery of your story, will pay more attention to non-obvious details of the story such as the motives or thoughts that a character may have, especially when the character makes make difficult decisions.

During a re-read, your readers may consider why you chose to have the plot takes the path it does, why you have written a story in a particular style, what it would be like to actually live in the world you create, or what one of the characters in the story might do in a situation other than the ones you describe. These are all ways that allow a reader to use their imagination to more fully enjoy the re-reading of a story. Since they allow the reader to engage their imagination in a creative way, the re-read is also a more active form of reading than the initial read.

If you write stories in a way that encourages readers to engage their imagination about your world, or to speculate about un-written details about the motivations, history, or personalities of your characters, you will also be encouraging readers to re-reading that story.

I speculate that the authors that do this well create many more details than they actually reveal in their stories. This allows them to create worlds and characters that have hidden (unwritten) details, and they can then include subtle clues about those hidden details in their stories.

Answer 7

Wit can sure help. I've always enjoyed re-reading witty things like Candide, Diderot's Jacques the Fatalist, Kafka's Trial and Dorian Gray.

Let me push back at the question a bit. I don't think a novel needs to be re-readable but it should raise enough questions that you should want to explore the story more deeply another time.

But that is just writing a rich story with lots of beautiful phrases and details. As an adult I may not catch every detail the first time around, but two or three years later, I will have forgotten most of the details -- it's almost like reading it for the first time.

The great thing about reading a book you have already read is that you know it's going to be good.

When you read later, you don't have as much suspense, but you are in a perfect position to enjoy the language and narrative asides. Even when I am paying attention during the first read, I miss a lot of stuff, so a second read can make up for my initial sloppy reading.

As an essayist and sometimes critic, I sometimes re-read things to write about them. But then again, I choose to write about literary works after deciding that it's good.

There have been times I have approached works later on and realized that my maturity and life experiences have changed the way I viewed the work and what viewpoints I identify with. When I grew up, I loved the TV show "All in the Family" and thought Archie Bunker was such a ridiculous figure. Now that I am in my 50s, I find a lot of Archie's attitudes are not so ridiculous (even if he words them poorly).

Maybe it would help to bake into the story different points of view.(this could be an argument for 3rd person omniscient).

Answer 8

I'll drop a very original approach to re-readability.

Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar.

An author's note suggests that the book would best be read in one of two possible ways, either progressively from chapters 1 to 56 or by "hopscotching" through the entire set of 155 chapters according to a "Table of Instructions" designated by the author. Cortázar also leaves the reader the option of choosing a unique path through the narrative.