Once I've started a book, I almost always finish it. In fact, I can only remember four cases in which I came close to giving up, and three of those were core books for my English course, so I read them, too. Of those, there is only one that I know I would have stopped reading (and possibly thrown across the room) if I'd been reading for my own pleasure, and that was largely because I couldn't work out what the hell was going on at any part of the thing. I still can't.

What you've described in your post sounds like components of the perfect book, though I would caution you to make sure that it's reasonably easy to keep up with what's happening, and that each revelation makes sense either at the time of the unveil, or once it’s been fully explained. Failure to do that will lose you readers for sure.

As to how long I'm willing to wait for plot; that very much depends on the book. When it comes to high fantasy I accept, and even half expect, a fairly long wait between character introduction and plot introduction, but for other things I would expect to see plot beginning to emerge within the first twenty or so pages. That said, if it's written well enough and the characters are interesting, then I probably won't mind all that much if it takes a little longer for the scene to be set.

Well, I don't know how much use this comment could be, but after browsing your 5-Tips journals (which are wonderfully concise and helpful) I thought I would post my opinion.

Usually I know from the first few pages whether or not I will really like the story, be it from the style or characterization. Though there are times I pick up a book I think I won't like at all and realize I do by the time I finish it. Generally I read the first sixty to one hundred pages of a novel, and if the author still has not provided something for me to care about I put it down.

As for your comments on point of view, I really think it depends on your skill as an author. As long as the shifts are forewarned or broken naturally and each feels like the character you are telling the story from then I think it would be a more fulfilling story.

Not very. Personally I don't see why all books can't be as too the point and engaging as the HP series. I don't believe in putting effort into reading a piece of entertainment unless it's something pretty special.

Writers who think they can spend a page or two telling me what someones favouite colour was when they were nine would be my biggest turnoff. Stephen King is massive on that one. Other than that I think a writer ought to make a point of emphasizing which character we're currently dealing with, just because I find it do easy to loose track of what is happening in the average novel. I don't believe I should have to actively pay attention to a piece of fiction... again, unless it's pretty special for some reason.

Hi, I'm a bit late to the game responding to this, but I just found your blog.

I prefer to connect with a character first. If I don't care if the character lives or dies then I don't care if the action starts out on page one with said character in a life or death situation. Good books need a little build up.

And three whole characters, however will the readers manage?! I love it when the POV changes (as long as it's not in the middle of a paragraph, yeah, fanfiction can get scary) it gives you a more in depth view of a story when you see it from different angles.

I used to be interested in homestuck until it got tiring to have to read walls of "trollspeak" text that wasn't all that interesting and hardly ever contributed to the plot. I doubt your story will be more complicated than that. though.. there's a lot of time traveling and complicated stuff like that.

I don't read much, but stories about characters developing into their life or becoming different people by the end of the story really get me. It's really easy to relate to because I myself am a teen still trying to find out who i am. (aged 18)

A story I'm working on has multiple characters that it follows. Heck, I've read tons of stories like this all the time and only NOW they think it's too hard on kids? Since when is it so hard for kids to pay attention to a good story? Three is a very good number too, in my opinion. Is the industry just so watered down with Teen Vampire Novels and half-assed attempts at Fantasy that they assume kids can no longer handle good literature? This just makes me mad.

Well, if your story is like I imagine it is from your description, then I think I'll like it! You almost described the elements I like most in a story, or the ones I would include in my own ones.
I can be somehow patient with a book or story, unless it DO is really boring, but that doesn't mean I can't hold a story with few fights. I would stop reading a story that I think it leads to nowhere, or somehow seems boring to me. And I don't mind if the story gives more importance to either the plot or the characters, or any other aspects a novel can have, as long as they do it well.
But anyway, you shold know by now that you will never please all your readers, and that it shouldn't matter that much, at least not over your own expectations or desires for your own story.

Your 5 tips series have helped me, so in a way this is a payback

I consider myself very patient reader, and despite my age I have read quite many YA books, some of them good, but most of them (in my opinion) bad. Hardly ever have I closed a book after mid-reading it (Eldest being the only one I can remember.) I'm not very picky reader, but there are several things that really turn me off:

1. Too shallow characters with little or none character development (Twilight)
2. Plot which is too simple and predictable (shy girl is in love with the most handsome guy in her class, but the boy is together with the popular and mean girl..and you can already guess what happens in the end)
3. Too much description that keeps going on and on and on...and adds nothing to the main plot, being overall useless for the story

It doesn't matter whether the plot starts immediately and we get to know the characters later or the characters are introduced first and the plot follows, as long as the characters are at some point described and developed during the story. Wandering around developing characters is not a bad thing either, as long as the main plot stays on the focus and the character development has something to do with it. (In another words the story should be consistent throughout the book.)

All in all what I demand for a YA book to be good, is good, consistent plot with description to add flavor; Too much and the book is spoiled, too little and it will be another one of those 'naah...boring...'-books that will gather dust on the bookshelf. But considering your writing skills, I'm sure you won't fall in either category!

I collect antique children's books and have a pretty good selection of classics aimed at kids and teens going back about a hundred years and from several different countries. I grew up on Swiss Family Robinson, Black Stallion, Black Beauty, Robinson Crusoe, Bambi and Bambi's Children, Chronicles of Narnia. I read Lord of the Rings when I was twelve. I read the Silmarillion when I was thirteen. If I didn't understand a book, I'd read it again. And again.
Granted, I had a lot of time to read; no television, no internet, and no game console. When I ran out of books, I wrote my own. A short-attention-span teen reader I was not.

What turns me off of books is when a writer just plunks you into the middle of the activity with this arrogant voice, saying "yeah, I know you haven't got a clue what's going on, but look! Action!" The current offender that comes to mind is the Fate of the Jedi book 1, where (this being Star Wars and the setting is largely familiar) the first chapter offers no explanation for suddenly screwing with a character's head, and by extension his whole family. I know the characters. I like those characters. I've followed them for several books now, and I'm done with the series because I couldn't get past the inept "hey, no explanation, but I'm sure you'll want to know why I just screwed over your favorite people!" start to the book. It's set up to be a mystery and draw the reader in, so you'll want to stay and find out why and what happens next. It's a cheap theatrical farce and reads like fan fiction. There is no setting, no build-up, no *gasp* foreshadowing. I would have loved six chapters of family nonsense with a slow buildup to the insanity, where you know it's coming and can't stop it, but you trust the author to respect the established characters enough to know they'll figure it out and pull through.

Another thing I can't stand is sacrificing plot in favor of the world. I love well-developed worlds. That's one of the reasons I love science fiction- it gives a writer a lot more room to develop within the realm of plausibility. However, having a brilliant world is not an excuse for having no plot. Court of the Air and Foundling are both that way. Court of Air did have a crazy fun world that fussed with all my expectations, but it was never explained in any cohesive manner. I would have loved an infodump. I would have loved any info at all. But no, I got to see stuff from a distance, but never understood it because no one ever explained anything. Foundling explained and explained, with a glossary of terms nearly as long as the book itself, but it's plot just kinda went eh. There is a sort-of try at a twist, but it was pretty hard to miss and came secondary to flipping to the back of the book to look up what that random made-up word meant. Leviathan got it pretty good, with enough information to understand the world and its politics, but enough plot and character to keep things moving along. Granted their biology made no sense, but I'll drop my bio card in favor of giant flying whales.

It's been a while since a book absolutely bored me to death. More often, I run out of patience with the characters. Evermere, for example, had a plot based solely on the stupidity of every single person involved. The first few Harry Potter books wandered into this territory too. Poor communication (between two people with vital information who are in the same room at the same time and simply choose not to talk for no relevant reason) is not a valid plot device.

Multiple points of view are fine. Game of Thrones got it right by breaking the points of view up into chapters titled by the speaker's name. Dragon Prince got it grossly wrong by shifting points of view mid-paragraph with no warning. Count of Monte Christo is one long-running book that demonstrates how effective multiple points of view are to telling the story, since the main character's actions were for the purpose of affecting others in very personal ways. Having multiple POV gave the audience a chance to feel it too. That book, entirely from the Count's perspective, would still be good but it would lack the power and spark that sets it apart from other revenge tales. It would just be about a guy doing bad stuff to bad people, rather than about a dozen separate people, with completely independent lives, living in a complex web of connections, lies, cheats and betrayals that's just itching to be torn apart.

So yeah, um, I guess that's my opinion on it! Sorry if it's long. I'm not sure if I was ever in the target demographic, as I didn't have access to currently-published teen lit when I was a teenager and am only reading it now, as an adult.

I'm probably not part of you target groups, but I like a story that has good characters and a willingness to explain concepts of its world without hand-waving. I like in-depth books that take the time to describe their world as well, as well as develop the characters and not have romance for the sake of it. I don't mind when the main plot starts, so long as it actually starts and the sub-plots/world building make up for when it doesn't.