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Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked

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Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked

#61

Post by tgb »

irrational wrote: post #46

I kept hearing raving reviews of "The Name of the Wind". I started reading it and got a couple of chapters in and had no interest in continuing. I mentioned this to my brother and he told me that I had to keep going. So I figured I'd read a bit more and see if there was anything to the book. I just finished it on Saturday and I have to say it is easily one of the best books I have ever read. But, if I had just read t…

Absolutely agree and notice a slight pattern with fantasy novels starting with overdone "spooky monster in the woods" setting before getting into anything interesting (like characters and plot). The opening to Game of Thrones is the same. I have to imagine it's their editors asking for something more generically sell-able.

Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked

#62

Post by jonahx »

NickM wrote: post #8

It'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.

Goodhart's Law:

> "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."[1] One way in which this can occur is individuals trying to anticipate the effect of a policy and then taking actions which alter its outcome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked

#63

Post by didsomeonesay »

openasocket wrote: post #47
irrational wrote: post #46

I kept hearing raving reviews of "The Name of the Wind". I started reading it and got a couple of chapters in and had no interest in continuing. I mentioned this to my brother and he told me that I had to keep going. So I figured I'd read a bit more and see if there was anything to the book. I just finished it on Saturday and I have to say it is easily one of the best books I have ever read. But, if I had just read t…

I felt pretty much the same way when reading it. "The Name of the Wind" is rather unusual as a novel because those first chapters are pretty fundamentally different than the rest of the novel. Not just in terms of plot, but I think also the general tone and style. I don't actually have a count, but I think it's a good 50-100 pages before the novel falls into its rhythm. It's not that the beginning is bad (in my opini…

"And, well, I thought. If I have to carry the damn thing, I might as well read it. So I started reading, and there, on page four—of a book that started on page three, mind you, were five bowls of stew."

https://www.tor.com/2011/03/07/best-sff-novels-of-the-decade...

Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked

#64

Post by kqr »

jrumbut wrote: post #13
NickM wrote: post #8

It'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…

I do this too, and my wife thinks I'm insane. But I'm not really trying to judge if the book is good or bad. I just want to know if it's good. And there are more good books with good first few pages than I'll be able to read in my lifetime, so I don't really lose a lot by accidentally not reading a good book with bad first pages. On the other hand, by accepting bad first pages I risk having to suffer a whole bad book!

Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked

#65

Post by the_af »

tgb wrote: post #61
irrational wrote: post #46

I kept hearing raving reviews of "The Name of the Wind". I started reading it and got a couple of chapters in and had no interest in continuing. I mentioned this to my brother and he told me that I had to keep going. So I figured I'd read a bit more and see if there was anything to the book. I just finished it on Saturday and I have to say it is easily one of the best books I have ever read. But, if I had just read t…

Absolutely agree and notice a slight pattern with fantasy novels starting with overdone "spooky monster in the woods" setting before getting into anything interesting (like characters and plot). The opening to Game of Thrones is the same. I have to imagine it's their editors asking for something more generically sell-able.

I think it's something different in A Game of Thrones, and it was a deliberate decision of the author. I imagine him going "you see, this opens like the typical fantasy novel, there's some dudes who are likely the heroes or related to them, and there's some monster, and this novel is going to be about them"... and then BAM! -- all those tropes are subverted. The novel is largely about something else, and these were not only not the heroes, but they weren't even important characters!

Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked

#66

Post by dspig »

NickM wrote: post #8

It'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.

Don't authors already put a lot of effort into the first line/paragraph/page?

Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked

#68

Post by jradd »

singingboyo wrote: post #37
IneffablePigeon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something similar has happened in pop music - because on Spotify (and probably other streaming services, too) a play counts if you listen to at least 30 seconds, there's been a definite shift towards songs that start off with a pared down version of the main hook, or at least start their build much more obviously early on. There's fewer long, drawn out intros (which are normally saved just for videos now).

In fairness, wasn't this also true for radio? I recall quite a number of songs where the full version (from a CD or similar) had an intro that I'd never hear on the radio.

TIL "radio edit" will not only edit the profanity, runtime/structure, but also the lyrics.

I heard this song today, and was surprised to hear my local state included in one of the verses:

e.g. One Republic - Good Life

  To my friends in New York, I say hello  
  To my friends in Utah "they don't know"

Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked

#69

Post by codazoda »

jradd wrote: post #68
singingboyo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, wasn't this also true for radio? I recall quite a number of songs where the full version (from a CD or similar) had an intro that I'd never hear on the radio.

TIL "radio edit" will not only edit the profanity, runtime/structure, but also the lyrics. I heard this song today, and was surprised to hear my local state included in one of the verses: e.g. One Republic - Good Life To my friends in New York, I say hello To my friends in Utah "they don't know"

I had always assumed this was the case for some songs.

Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked

#70

Post by dingaling »

ahartmetz wrote: post #51
isolli wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting example, one of the best-known book openings in French literature ("Aujourd'hui, maman est morte."), and the difficulties translating the sentence in English: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translat...

Interesting article, and I believe I have a better translation: "Today, my mom died." It sounds better than just "mom" and seems to express the right level of closeness. OTOH I think it's often appropriate to keep "mamma" in Italian movies and texts because it carries a huge amount of connotations, which "maman" doesn't.

But then you have to translate for the majority of English-speaking countries that don't use 'mom'...
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