Long before I started writing fiction, I belonged to numerous book clubs. For me, adding book-centered conversation to a glass of wine, snacks, and the chance to poke around in a neighbor’s house creates a perfect social event. Yet 90 million Goodreads members and the plethora of online reading groups suggest that many don’t even require an in-person component. They just want to connect over the books they’ve read.
In order to earn a piece of the book-club audience, which has the potential to serve as a a word-of-mouth marketing machine for novelists, I look here at some of my favorite questions from reading guides to glean what I can about how to meet the needs of of readers who hope a novel will generate great discussion.
Let’s give them something to talk about, shall we?
- “What interested you about the protagonist’s unique perspective?”
One of the things fiction does so brilliantly is to allow you to walk for a while in someone else’s shoes. Think The Girls by Lori Lansens, told in the alternating voices of conjoined twins. Or Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, narrated by Death.
I’ll never forget the third club in which I discussed Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain, told from the perspective of an evolved dog who has observed crucial information for his beloved human, Denny, yet cannot effectively communicate it. At one point, a book club member who was profoundly deaf, and struggling to keep up with our excited chatter, waved his hands to get our attention. We looked over at him as one, as if surprised he wanted to speak. Forcing a vocalization, he said, “I am the dog.” Had goosebumps then, and have them again now while typing this—it was a powerful moment.
Book club members want a chance to look at life in a new way. How will your protagonist’s unique perspective help them do that?
- “Which character did you relate to the most?”
To inspire this discussion, consider orchestrating your character set around a timely or meaningful theme. One of my favorite examples of this is John Irving’s The Cider House Rules, whose cast is orchestrated around a woman’s reproductive rights. It features middle-of-the-roader Dr. Larch, who both performs abortions and raises unwanted children; pro-lifer Homer, one of the abandoned children and Larch’s reluctant apprentice; Homer’s love interest, who came to end her pregnancy; and the incest victim that inspires Homer to perform his first “in extreme circumstances” abortion. By giving us deep access to a range of characters we can relate to, such stories help us learn more about ourselves.
- “How did the story’s developing drama reflect something the protagonist was already wrestling with at the opening?”
By showing us that the deeply personal can also be universal and political, stories can change lives. A reader may not identify as a feminist, say, until she bonds with abused wife Fran Benedetto in Anna Quindlen’s Black and Blue. A reader’s prejudices about mental illness might remain hidden until exposed through her low expectations for a character like Barbara Claypole White’s James Nealy, who struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder in The Unfinished Garden. A reader who hesitates to support LGBTQ rights might be emboldened after discussing the true nature of love, as inspired by a character like Allison Banks in Chris Bohjalian’s Trans-Sister Radio.
To inspire the kind of debate that results in a consciousness-raising experience, start with inner conflicts to which many of us can relate, and externalize the specific conflict from there with stakes that remind us that what we humans think and feel matters.
- “How did the book’s structure help set expectation and convey meaning?”
When book club darling Sue Monk Kidd used nonfiction epigraphs for the chapters in The Secret Life of Bees, she invited readers to consider what biological and social impulses we humans might share with lower life forms. When early on Delia Owens intercut short chapters investigating the murder of a character we haven’t yet met in Where the Crawdads Sing, readers knew that a girl growing up alone in a marsh would suffer problems beyond how she’d gain an education or find her next meal.
Book club members not only find great joy in digesting and interpreting story, they are eager to identify all the factors that make it meaningful and impactful. The way you order and frame your story can allow you to plant clues about where the story is heading while still allowing readers the space they need to enter into and own the story.
- “Where do you see these characters another five years down the road?”
While many readers love their “happily ever after” endings, for this question to generate conversation, take out the “ever after.” Whether hopeful or tragic, an ending that wraps things up with an imperfect bow will continue to act on the reader long after the last page, as she chews on the future implications for all of the characters. Danielle Younge-Ullman pushed “open-ended” to the max in Falling Under by not telling her readers which male character arrives to support the female protagonist at story’s end, something you’ll find at once maddening and intriguing. My guess is, it cost her readers—but boy, does it generate discussion!
Although I saved this question for last, it is my favorite question to ask the book clubs I visit. While my readers find my endings satisfying, the wide range of enthusiastic answers they give shows that their imaginations are not constrained to what occurred between the covers of the book. A tidy epilogue would have robbed my readers of this chance to co-create story.
(As this discussion draws to a close, excuse Kathryn as she snarfs down one last stuffed mushroom and raises her wineglass.)
Here’s to the next great book club read—may it be written by you!
What are your favorite book club discussion questions? Or, tell us something you’ve learned about writing from one of the discussions in your own book club.
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About Kathryn Craft
Kathryn Craft (she/her) is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy. A freelance developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com since 2006, Kathryn also teaches in Drexel University’s MFA program and runs a year-long, small-group mentorship program, Your Novel Year. Learn more on Kathryn's website.
Kathryn, even though my most urgent WIP is narrative nonfiction, I can make very good use of these questions in developing it. Also, you have added to my list of books to be read and enjoyed (to which I add only when a book is recommended by someone I respect; otherwise life would be too short and my own works would languish). Thanks for both!
Yes Anna, I can see that, since narrative NF is story-based—and also a popular choice for many book clubs!
“…eager to identify the factors that make it meaningful and impactful.”
You have put your finger on it: what it is in a novel that rewards book clubs and causes them to feel that a given novel was worth not just reading and enjoying but worth study and discussion. Meaning.
Where does meaning come from? Well, from book clubs, academics and critics (if there are any of those left), but it can also come, consciously, from authors. When a point is seered into an author’s mind, it can seep into the story’s characters and action, absorbed like a marinade the taste of which survives the heat of the fire.
(Really, Don? A barbecue metaphor for storytelling?)
Stories don’t have to make a point, it is enough for a novel to give us an experience, but when there is a purpose underlying a tale that we can infer, we are rewarded—and opened and cautioned and heartened—in ways that change us and we wish to share. Hence book clubs.
Great post. Wish I’d thought of it!
I take that last line as quite the compliment, Don!
One thing I love about the added perspective book clubs can add is how a novel can be even more meaningful after you discuss it. Felt that way about Columbus McCann’s “Let the Great World Spin.” Going into the club I thought, “Happy enough to have read it, but…” which became, after discussion, “This book was brilliant.”
Wonderful post, Kathryn! This is a thought-provoking guide for authors, whether in the planning stage or in late-stage edits. Three cheers for book clubs!
Thanks Rebecca. We must follow our inspiration for story, for sure, but as we develop our stories—and if we hope them to appeal to book club readers—it behooves is to think about what issues we are giving them to discuss.
Well done, with great examples, as always! A key takeaway for me is the reminder that we need to keep the reader’s experience in mind while we are in the writer’s chair. The questions that readers might discuss are the same questions that we need to keep with us as we write … And yes, to leave space for the reader to experience, ponder, articulate, and discuss. That’s how a book sinks in deeply, I think. Bit by bit, over time. Thank you!
Thanks for reading, Barbara! Seeing things from a reader’s experience is key, and the reason we need to keep reading and analyzing the fiction that resonates with us.
I loved this article, and especially this quote:
“To inspire the kind of debate that results in a consciousness-raising experience, start with inner conflicts to which many of us can relate, and externalize the specific conflict from there with stakes that remind us that what we humans think and feel matters.”
Wow! This is what I’m aiming for in my WIP. Thanks for the inspiration! I’m going to print this out and keep it in the inspiration box I keep on the table next to me where I write. :)
Awesome, Sheree! Thrilled to take a place in your inspiration box. 😊
Wonderful post, Kathryn. My favorite discussion point is your last one about envisioning the story people later. When a book is satisfying it’s so good to close it and daydream. And think back to how they got here. Just like with real people, their lives have meaning.
Mine too, Vijaya, and especially fun to ask if you are a visiting author discussing your own book. It’s a special privilege to be able to spur on another’s imagination. And what they come up with can be quite entertaining!
Many thanks for this timely post.
How long do you think a reader’s guide for a book club should be? How many questions become too many questions?
Even though the answer is ‘it depends,’ do you have a gut feeling about it?
I think getting a long list of questions might be daunting, but running out of questions while you’re still having fun discussing the book could be equally discouraging.
It’s on my list to produce a guide for my debut trilogy (of which only the first book has been published), and my plan was to put in maybe an even dozen of primary questions, followed by a list of supplemental questions, possibly sorted by topic, for a moderator to select from.
My ultimate aim is book club readers.
Hi Alicia, Sourcebooks asked me for 25 for my debut and I easily and happily provided them. I attended only one club who used them, though—they were insistent upon answering each one—and it was kind of like “fun in a panic.” My second novel had fewer—15 maybe?—and covering them in two hours seemed much more doable. Not sure if I’ve seen fewer than 10.
Kathryn:
This post is equally useful to us short-fiction writers. Magazine editors judge stories using the same criteria as book club readers, and their standards and expectations are just as high. I’ll keep these questions in mind for all my WIP. Thanks for this refreshing take.
Glad it was useful to you, Christine. Thanks for your comment!
I’m going to ask that last question at book clubs I visit from now on. :)
It’s a good one! The discussion that one inspired at The Far End of Happy club discussions became the seed of my next novel!
Thanks for mentioning my beloved James. When I was an author-in-waiting, he was rejected many times over. He was too weird, too unlikely as a love interest, too stalker-ish, too intense, too dark, and my all time favorite from another author judging my enter for a competition: “Dude. Is this guy, like, off his meds?” James taught me resilience, but something far more valuable: how to write outside my comfort zone. I think that’s a good place for an author of book club fiction, because we’re on the journey, too.
Thanks for stopping by, Barbara! Great observation about writing outside our comfort zone. I agree!