If you hope to write a bestseller, it's wise to create a story people claim they couldn't put down, or that it kept them up reading all night. A page-turner.

Here are some clues about writing a page-turner, from Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais and Raymond Chandler.  

Mike Connelly gave a talk in which he mentioned that he tried to put a question on every page of his novels. If we ponder the kinds of questions we can offer, we can recognize a whole world of possibilities. Plot questions major and minor: Did the butler do the murder? Is the fellow in the beret an accomplice?  Character questions: Why does Joe sneer when referring to his ex? Questions prompted by detail: Where did Myrna get the scar?

Someone dedicated to breaking the best-seller code might go to one of Connelly's novels and compile a list of the questions that arise page by page. 

Last year at Murder in the Grove, a swell conference in Boise, Idaho, Robert Crais gave a keynote talk and informed us that he had learned from Raymond Chandler's letters that Chandler attempted to put something interesting on every page. And, according to Crais, Chandler wrote in longhand on steno pads so that the small pages would force him to include more interesting stuff. As what's interesting and what's not is mighty subjective, I won't expand on this technique except to suggest that we'd be wise to consider what interests the type of reader we're seeking. Some enjoy literary allusions, while others would rather read about autopsies or the firing range of a certain gun. 

Recently at the Men of Mystery luncheon in Irvine, California, Mike Connelly talked about a method Kurt Vonnegut proposed. I recalled Vonnegut's visit to the University of Iowa. Three times, in a class, at an open lecture, and again at a party after the lecture, he stressed that the most important factor in creating dramatic tension was building a character with whom we can sympathize and showing that the character desperately wants something he can't readily obtain.

That's sound and standard advice. But Mike added a twist. He said Vonnegut proposed that on every page a character should want something.

Let's say on page 32, Maurice wants a hamburger. Page 33, he wants a kiss from his mother. Page 34, he wants to stop in a liquor store for a lottery ticket.  As the story proceeds and the wants add up, not only do the questions (will he get what he wants) build and sustain tension, we also come to know Maurice darned well.