What is the driving force in short stories? What is your impetus when reading them?

Short stories get to the point faster than reading books. The author’s make it intriguing in order for the reader not to lose interest. When reading short stories, I have realized that they all have a scene where it is so intense you do not want to stop reading. I think that is one of the main points when writing a short story- the driving force that lures the reader into the narrative. When the class was reading the short story by Tobias Wolff, we were all ensnared by the story because of the curiosity of what would happen to the girl. The driving force for this story was the creepy man who knew everything of the girl. We all wanted to know what he was going to do next, or who he actually is. The driving force for short story writers are the characters they place in their books. What kind of character they are, how they act, and how they represent themselves. Are they interesting, are they boring, do they play a main role? How the author’s present the characters is what really matters. If the protagonist is not interesting, then why should the reader want to read? The character must be full of mystery, fun, or have an interesting life where the reader wants to learn more of him or her. If the protagonist is mysterious, we as readers have the urge to read more and find out their true personality or whatever he or she is going to do. If the main character is fun, then the readers would want to know what kind of other things they are going to do or say. It also goes for them having an interesting life. We would want to know more of it, maybe we can relate to it- maybe not. This is what the driving force for short story writers are and our impetus would be our curiosity.