Loop

Question loop

You might say: open loops, curiosity, ask and delay

Lee Child’s method: ask a question, then delay the answer. He uses it for the whole book, each chapter, each page and each sentence.

What it does

Keeps the reader reading at every scale.

Ask

Which question is open right now?

Trouble

All the questions are answered at once, and the reader stops.

What to look for

1. An unanswered question at page or chapter scale
2. Answers delayed across the story
3. A question open in one sentence while another closes

Loop: cycle

Hooks → Information gap → Promise and payoff ↺

Pattern

Setup and payoff

Sources

1. Lee Child, Writing Popular Fiction, pp. 106–109You ask or imply a question at the beginning of the book and you do not answer it until the end.

Use it on your project

teardown-apply: hold "Question loop" (question-loop) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/fiction-writing/ against my project

Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.

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