Great idea. No HTTPS?
I feel ignorant about this. Why would this site need HTTPS?
Put concisely, so nobody can inject content in-transit.
Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
21–30 of 126 posts
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#22It's interesting to think what might happen if something like this became really popular. I'd imagine many novels might start adding super oddball stuff in the first page, just to stand out from the crowd and pique peoples' curiosity. Kind of the literary equivalent to clickbait headlines.
Amazon already does this. They allow you to download first n pages of as an ebook for free.
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#23I'm currently hooked to this free book
"Stories on the Go: 101 Very Short Stories by 101 Authors"
https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Go-Very-Short-Authors-ebook/d...
Each story is <1000 words (5-10mins), from a distinct author, and if you like the writing style, you can buy more books from the author.
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this might already happen. This is just anecdata but I often get turned off from books by overwrought first page(s). Eventually someone convines me to go back and the rest of the novel is good. I'd love to hear an author's perspective on this, if any of them notice it. My guess is that they stew on opening passages for years before writing, causing them to get a little neurotic about them, then eventually the…
In pretty much any writing medium (novels, screenplays, short stories, etc), standard advice involves hooking the reader within the first paragraph or so. This is partly why "in medias res" tends to be such a popular opening technique - it drops the reader straight into the action, which is theoretically more interesting than "She woke up, got dressed, and went downstairs for her daily breakfast of toast and juice...…
My forever favorite opening line to a novel remains “We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold”
How can you not want to keep reading after that? While at the same time it’s still at the beginning, not assaulting you with action, etc
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#25It's interesting to think what might happen if something like this became really popular. I'd imagine many novels might start adding super oddball stuff in the first page, just to stand out from the crowd and pique peoples' curiosity. Kind of the literary equivalent to clickbait headlines.
that's why judging a book by one page is basically impossible and will never actually become popular aside from a fun little project
You can judge writing style by reading only one page. Soemtimes that's a good indicator.
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#26It's interesting to think what might happen if something like this became really popular. I'd imagine many novels might start adding super oddball stuff in the first page, just to stand out from the crowd and pique peoples' curiosity. Kind of the literary equivalent to clickbait headlines.
I think this might already happen. This is just anecdata but I often get turned off from books by overwrought first page(s). Eventually someone convines me to go back and the rest of the novel is good. I'd love to hear an author's perspective on this, if any of them notice it. My guess is that they stew on opening passages for years before writing, causing them to get a little neurotic about them, then eventually the…
Writer's perspective - starting and ending a book are the top 2 hardest things, in my opinion, especially because editors get all up your ass about beginnings. I suspect this has to do with primacy principle, i.e.the editor is "most aware" during the beginning of the reading, and also aware that readers do the same thing. They will pick up the book in the bookstore and possibly skim the beginning to see if they should buy, so you gotta hook.
Other things I find difficult about writing:
Ending chapters (I saw a really bad one once in the Broken Earth trilogy that was basically "[character] realized she had nothing more to say, so she walked away." I totally understood how the author got herself in that situation lol)
Making decisions on tropes. For example, say I'm writing a sci fi with a "rise of the machines" plot point (I am). What is the nature of those machines? Rampant AI in existent technology? Did it make war-bots? Or maybe multiple rampant AIs in autonomous bots? Etc. There's like fifty of these kinds of decisions I need to make in a book I'm working on now.
Writing dialogue that's interesting, but not campy, but realistic, but not drab.
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this might already happen. This is just anecdata but I often get turned off from books by overwrought first page(s). Eventually someone convines me to go back and the rest of the novel is good. I'd love to hear an author's perspective on this, if any of them notice it. My guess is that they stew on opening passages for years before writing, causing them to get a little neurotic about them, then eventually the…
In pretty much any writing medium (novels, screenplays, short stories, etc), standard advice involves hooking the reader within the first paragraph or so. This is partly why "in medias res" tends to be such a popular opening technique - it drops the reader straight into the action, which is theoretically more interesting than "She woke up, got dressed, and went downstairs for her daily breakfast of toast and juice...…
A great example of "in media res" mildly weirdly implemented is the beginning of the second "Sin City" movie, wherein Marv wakes up next to a crashed cop car and some other vehicle, asking "how did I get here?" It's a weird implementation because it immediately goes into a flashback, but I wouldn't say it's a "poor" implementation because the effect is the viewer is introduced to Marv's memory issues.
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#28Tindr for books?
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#29Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#30It's interesting to think what might happen if something like this became really popular. I'd imagine many novels might start adding super oddball stuff in the first page, just to stand out from the crowd and pique peoples' curiosity. Kind of the literary equivalent to clickbait headlines.
Reminds me of this: http://bulwer-lytton.com/
"The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels."