So, I was talking with some writing friends before a Zoom meeting, and someone asked me what kind of stories I liked most. I started to say mysteries because I’m a huge fan of the mystery genre, but then I stopped myself. The truth is, my taste is broader than one single genre. But there is one specific quality that all of my favs have in common, and it’s this… the stories I love most, the ones I can’t put down, all make me think.

Getting your audience to think makes a story more memorable, and accomplishing this can definitely elevate your novel and separate it from the pack. Also, the unique specific details you’ll naturally include to stimulate your readers’ gray matter will make your story richer and flesh out your characters. Both of which are great things! But what if you don’t have unique expertise in botany, white river rafting, or dog training?

Doesn’t matter. There are many ways to get the gears in readers’ minds turning. Remember, thinking isn’t just about teaching people something new. Thinking can be about stretching your brain in any sense. I’ve listed eight, let’s call them, ‘thinking hacks.’ Below.

1. Put your characters in a no-win situation, like in Hulu’s series YA Cruel Summer, where the once nerdy protagonist discovers that the popular missing teen girl, whose boyfriend and perfect life she’s pretty much taken over, is alive and being held captive in their principal’s basement.  Should she tell what she knows and risk losing her now great life or keep quiet and deal with the guilt and the possibility that her silence might someday be revealed?
2. Take a cue from Walter Tevis’s novel and the Netflix Series, The Queen’s Gambit, about competitive chess, or Robert Harris’s British thriller and film Concave, about choosing a new pope. If you are an expert in a field, don’t be shy about incorporating your knowledge into your story. Your readers will appreciate your insider’s take.
3. Get super-creative, build a new world, and immerse your readers in it. Get them to think by using their vivid imaginations like J K Rowling did in her Harry Potter series. Ask Rowling. It truly works.
4. Create memorable and complex characters like Thomas Harris’s character, Hannibal Lecter, in his novel, Silence of the Lambs, which was adapted to film. Back in 1991, readers and viewers couldn’t help but think and analyze about Hannibal’s motives and wonder what the psychopath, who was both charming and terrifying, would do next. (myself included)
5. Give the reader a single but riveting question like Stephanie Meyers did in her vampire series, Twilight, to keep readers turning pages.  Who should Bella Swan end up with? Vampire, Edward? (Team Edward) or Werewolf, Jacob? (Team Jacob) The question was so compelling to Twilight fans that it resulted in merch, t-shirts, and TV debates.
6. Add interiority. I love it when I’m deep inside a character’s head and hear their thoughts and feelings about a particular situation. I feel especially emotionally connected to characters with close POVs, and because of this, I think more about them and their lives. Your readers will, too. Books that focus on a character’s inner thoughts are Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.
7. Put your characters in a challenging historical period and bring them to life.  Gone with the Wind by Margaret Michell (Antebellum Civil War) and Winter by Len Deighton (WW1 and WW11 Berlin) get readers to think about what they studied in history class.
8. Write from a unique perspective, Like Alice Sebold did when she wrote Lovely Bones from the mind/voice of a murdered teen girl, and she challenged her reader’s views on grief, thus making them think. This book was a game-changer for me.

I hope the above suggestions help. As I said, I love novels that get me thinking. The only thing that trumps them for me are novels that CHANGE the way I think about myself, a situation, or the world. I’ve listed some books below that have transformed many readers. If a book has changed your life, I’d love to hear about it! Thanks for reading this post!

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Glass Castle by Jennette Walls

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho