What keeps me reading
So this morning while brushing my teeth, I started thinking about what keeps me reading a book. I came up with three things, and then just now thought of a fourth:
1. A mystery to figure out.
2. An imminent train wreck.
3. An intriguing character who makes me want to see what s/he does next.
4. A tightly controlled chatty narrative style that rewards me with sharp humor.
Books can have more than one of these things, obviously, and I suspect the more they have, the more I want to keep reading. And books can have these things but not hold me; I tend to think that's a case of the author doing the thing badly, or doing so many other things wrong that it doesn't matter if s/he does this bit well. But let me 'splain what I mean by each.
1. A mystery. Obviously mystery novels have this, but that's not what I mean. "Whodunnit" is not a mystery. We know it will be solved at the end, and we have to read the whole book before we get the answer. The mystery that keeps me reading a book is the sort where we know something strange is going on, but we don't yet understand the nature of it. Strange creatures are preying on people, but we don't know why. People are dying but we don't know the cause. The furniture keeps getting rearranged but no one sees it happen.
These sort of mysteries have great potential to be multi-layered. We discover that the victims of a mysterious ailment are being preyed upon by creatures. Then we want to learn the nature of those creatures. Then who controls them, and why that person/group has sent them out to kill people. Each step of those interconnected mysteries pulls me through the book. This sort of book is often told in tight POV of a single protagonist, so the reader learns information only as the protag does. Examples of this sort of book: Harry Connolly's Twenty Palaces series; Laurell Hamilton's early Anita Blake books.
2. Imminent trainwreck. I love novels where you get multiple POVs of characters who each have their own goals. You are usually set up to root for one or another person/group, but there's a deliciousness to seeing the machinations on both sides, and seeing where they're going to collide with each other at some point a few chapters later. Very good books of this sort will have the trains bump into each other a bunch of times throughout the book.
Examples: Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.
3. Intriguing character. Usually combines with one of the other things, but if the character were different, the book would fall apart. For me this character is usually crazy and unpredictable, and almost always clever. I want to see what smart thing he* does next. This might also apply to a character who is experiencing something profound and we experience it along with him or her.
Examples: Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan novels; Dunnett's Francis Crawford novels; Keyes' Charlie Gordon (Flowers for Algernon).
[3.a. If the world is fascinating enough, it acts as a character. This is very rarely enough by itself to make the book pull me on; however, it can greatly enhance an otherwise ordinary book.]
4. Chatty Humor. Some books have a plot and characters that are interesting enough, but the reason you keep reading is because the narrator (author) is entertaining. This is more common in narrative nonfiction (e.g. David Sedaris) than in novels. In fact, the best novel I can think of that does this does it by being an account of a fictional reference book.
Example: The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's interesting to note that while the accounts of what happens to Arthur and the other characters are funny, the most hilarious bits are the entries from the Guide itself.
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I understand other people are drawn into and through by glorious language. We can call that element #5 if you like, but it doesn't draw me through a book. I need at least one of the above things.
Some books start as one and become others. Nine Princes in Amber starts as #1, and once we learn who Corwin really is, it becomes #3a combined with #2.
#2 often combines with #3: Brilliant clever characters in opposition to each other, headed toward an epic trainwreck. Pawn in Frankincense is the best Francis Crawford book because we see Francis vs. Gabriel chugging away towards each other. Similarly, Mirror Dance is the best Bujold novel, because we have both Miles and Mark making their way around very dangerous, smart foes.
I also note that I have finished and enjoyed books that didn't have any of the above in great abundance; sometimes a small taste of each will do the trick.
However, there are plenty of books that are what I call "unobjectionable": the characters are entertaining enough, the plot is sensible, etc.etc. If I have nothing else to do, I will manage to read them all the way through and come out happy to have read them. And then they will fall out of my brain. Or if I get distracted by life while in the middle of them, I will put them down and never pick them back up again.
What examples of these categories do you like? Or what other categories can you come up with?
*It's frustrating that the only examples I can think of are male. Is there a female character in the universe who fits this bill?