Whenever you have an idea on what to write next (while you’re blocking out the scene in PPT or later, while writing it out), try this trick. Instead of writing down your brilliant idea, write the opposite of it, and only later reveal the truth.

So, in short: use reversal to hook your reader.

For example, let’s say you’re writing about a character (a white boy) falling for another character (a white girl). You could dream up a beautiful scenario, like the girl was late for class (let’s say it was high school) and she walked into the room flushed from the cold (her cheeks would be pink), and the boy was new to class, and he saw her and got smitten by her on the spot (it’s a romantic convention that I invite you to also reverse and break, see how below).

Now, reverse that. Instead of writing how the boy was smitten by the beauty if the girl, write how he was shocked by her ugliness (reverse beauty to ugliness), but then later the girl did something that won the boy’s heart, and he saw her true beauty, her human beauty as opposed to how she didn’t fit in the conventional physical standards of beauty in his school/culture/society.

You can reverse it another way. Let’s say the boy saw a different girl walk into class all flushed from the cold, and she sat at the desk next to a pain girl, but then the pretty girl did something horrible, and the plain girl did something noble, and the boy suddenly got smitten by the plain girl whom he didn’t even notice at first.

That’s how reversal works. 

Now go and apply it to your writing, and watch the incredible results of your readers asking for more.

Illustration by Fernando Cobelo