on Helping Writers become Authors:

As an author, you want to create characters so rich and compelling readers will carry a piece of the story with them for the rest of their lives. Then, once you’ve peopled your pages with vivid personalities, you want to shove them into the middle of the most gripping and exciting situations you can think of. The more readers care of about these people, the more likely they are to care about your book.

However, no matter how compelling your characters or how gripping your action, you may still run the great risk of losing readers if you’re employing a distant narrative that pulls readers out of the story, rather than pulling them in deeper.

Here’s an example: A fantasy I read recently featured some of the most brilliant actions scenes I’ve ever read… and yet it still had me yawning and peeking ahead to the next scene.

What went wrong?