Today's question:
What keeps you reading beyond the first few pages of a book, and what makes you stop reading a book and put it back on the shelf?
I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to books. Even ones that don't totally suck me in will still pull me through the pages, but they won't keep me up reading late into the night. I can put them down, walk away, come back sometime later when I feel like it. Only curiosity to know how it turns out makes me keep reading. I just don't read those ones again or often. The ones I sacrifice sleep for have brilliant writing and characters that grab me.
Ones that do make me put them down, assuming I picked them up in the first place. Excessive unreasonable violence, MCs doing things I cannot root for and antagonists who are just as bad (stories from the villain's view where I can root for the antagonist aka hero are different), excessive swearing, a sequence of events I cannot find at all plausible in the context of the world setting, a total snooze fest, or very confusing.
9 comments:
I'm wondering if I should ask you to read my current WIP so far. Based on your criteria, if I can get you to pay attention and read without getting mad or bored and putting it down, I'm golden!
Well, I've been enjoying your blog posts so far. If your fiction is anything like your reminiscing, I'd probably like those stories, too. I'm not a great critiquer, but I do my best for my fellow writers on the SF/F crit forum of the Writer's Digest forums. They have crit forums for the other genres, but ours is one of the most active.
Maybe once I get the first draft done I'll visit a crit forum. Right now, I'm trying not to get distracted by going backwards to self-edit. It's a struggle for me, but so far so good. Except for the last two days when The Muse abandoned me. She made a tentative reappearance at lunch today, and I put down 300+ words. Better than the 0 count from the last 48 hours.
These book blogger hop questions just get better and better. This one looks easy but I think it’s a trick question. We all know it’s the same answer – the writing – but we all have different perspectives of what good writing is.
Hop on over to my blog at http://www.howardsherman.net and read my three-prong answer as I explain why I’ll decide to pick up a book or put it down in under sixty seconds.
Happy July 4th Weekend!
Howard Sherman, Implementor
http://www.howardsherman.net
I understand that, Joshua. I probably shouldn't be trying to get crits on my stuff yet, either for that reason, but I can't help it. I do let them know that I'm not looking for line edits though, just character development, whether the action makes sense, and if it's appealing. It helps keep me from getting overly critical of myself. Plus we have a thread for general writing discussions, a thread for our book reading goals, and one when we are running a contest among ourselves.
I'm with you on the excessive violence thing, but luckily I haven't mistakenly picked one up where I wasn't expecting it. And I HATE when MCs or Deus Ex Machina ruin a story through stupidity! Unfortunately, that tends to happen closer to the end of the story, when I've already invested so much time and effort into it that I have to keep reading just to validate myself.
Hopping through. New follower! There are lots of reasons I will keep going with a book or that I'll stop reading. Like you, lots of bad language and really confusing plots are big turn offs.
My Hop
NEW FOLLOWER.
What a BEAUTIFUL blog...love your design...so original and clever.
I have a giveaway going on at my blog if you want to stop by.
Elizabeth
http://silversolara.blogspot.com
Welcome Vicki, Alison, Emma, Pedantic, and Elizabeth.
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