Abby ~Sign Please~ asked Shannon Messenger:

I'm writing a book right now and I read over it and it seems to be missing something. It then occurred to me that it has no mood. My book is for middle grade readers and it is a fantasy but it wasn't stimulating to read. I then thought of books that were stimulating to read and one of them was Keeper of the Lost cities so I thought I'd ask you the following question; How do you make a book interesting?

Shannon Messenger Yikes--this is one of those questions where there really isn't an answer, because there's no single thing (or even handful of things) that make something interesting. But I will say it's often helpful to try to work beyond the obvious (so, for example, when I could have my characters walk somewhere, or have them ride a super-cool creature--it tends to be way better to go with the super-cool creature). Also, if you have complex, layered characters that have a wide variety of personalities, they can give you so much more to play with.

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