Post by account_disabled on Jan 3, 2024 6:21:57 GMT
The first time I read Philip K. Dick I was expecting a good science fiction novel, having read around how highly regarded he was as an author. But I didn't like Ubik at all. Disappointment, then. Despite this, I purchased other of his novels, reading only six for now, but I didn't like only that one and the last one, The Swastika on the Sun. Patience. I think it's helpful to understand these expectations if we want to improve our writing. Put ourselves in the readers' shoes and try to understand what goes through their minds when they read and choose a novel. 5 key elements for reader expectations That is: how do we choose a book to read? Title of the novel : the first time I chose a novel to read inspired by the title, The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, I thought it was a fantasy and I found myself in a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients.
But I was a student with almost no books under my belt. Luckily I liked it. In a novel perhaps the title alone can hardly arouse curiosity. Beyond the Border (Cormac McCarthy), PopCo (Scarlett Thomas), The Cuckoo's Calling (Robert Galbraith) do not give us any information about the story. But the title still remains one of the elements that influence our choices. Cover illustration : yet they didn't exist once. The classics, which weren't classics when they first came out, didn't have it and often still don't have it. How much Special Data better was it? I'm really starting to think we need to go back to those times. For some novels, however, it is fundamental, as in fantasy, science fiction, adventure, horror. A good drawing strikes our curiosity. Author's name : when I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy, I decided that I had to have everything he had written and in a short time I picked up all his novels, which I am savoring. Same thing I'm doing with Dick and Rowling and others. If we know the writer, because he is famous or because we liked him, a book by him will come through the back door, because he will have a special "recommendation".
Literary genre : if we like a specific genre - or several genres, it doesn't matter - we are led to immediately make a selection among the published books. If I feel like reading science fiction, I go straight to that market. This is how I read Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie: I asked a friend for a specific type of science fiction. Knowledge of the story : that is, going to the cinema and then buying the novel because we liked the film a lot. In this way I read The Road , The Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, The Cub by MK Rawlings, Misunderstood by Florence Montgomery, Tarzan by Burroughs, King Kong by Lovelace, Journey to the Center of the Earth by Verne, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, The Island of Fear by Dennis Lehane, Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra, Divergent (and the other 3 in the series) by Veronica Roth, Winter's Frost by Daniel Woodrell, The Giver (and the other 3 in the series) by Lois Lowry, etc. And I bought some others but haven't read them yet.
But I was a student with almost no books under my belt. Luckily I liked it. In a novel perhaps the title alone can hardly arouse curiosity. Beyond the Border (Cormac McCarthy), PopCo (Scarlett Thomas), The Cuckoo's Calling (Robert Galbraith) do not give us any information about the story. But the title still remains one of the elements that influence our choices. Cover illustration : yet they didn't exist once. The classics, which weren't classics when they first came out, didn't have it and often still don't have it. How much Special Data better was it? I'm really starting to think we need to go back to those times. For some novels, however, it is fundamental, as in fantasy, science fiction, adventure, horror. A good drawing strikes our curiosity. Author's name : when I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy, I decided that I had to have everything he had written and in a short time I picked up all his novels, which I am savoring. Same thing I'm doing with Dick and Rowling and others. If we know the writer, because he is famous or because we liked him, a book by him will come through the back door, because he will have a special "recommendation".
Literary genre : if we like a specific genre - or several genres, it doesn't matter - we are led to immediately make a selection among the published books. If I feel like reading science fiction, I go straight to that market. This is how I read Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie: I asked a friend for a specific type of science fiction. Knowledge of the story : that is, going to the cinema and then buying the novel because we liked the film a lot. In this way I read The Road , The Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, The Cub by MK Rawlings, Misunderstood by Florence Montgomery, Tarzan by Burroughs, King Kong by Lovelace, Journey to the Center of the Earth by Verne, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, The Island of Fear by Dennis Lehane, Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra, Divergent (and the other 3 in the series) by Veronica Roth, Winter's Frost by Daniel Woodrell, The Giver (and the other 3 in the series) by Lois Lowry, etc. And I bought some others but haven't read them yet.