“By the mere fact that we bother to read a novel, thus expending time which might otherwise be passed in company with actual people, we are going out of our way to meet the characters to whom the novelist wishes to introduce us. He therefore owes us an assurance that they shall be even more worth our while than the average actual person.” – Clayton Meeker Hamilton, A Manual of the Art of Fiction
What fictional character would you most like to have dinner with? What would you talk about?
Category Archives: Reader Friday
Reader Friday: I Wish I Had Not Read That
Dorothy Parker, the famous wit, once wrote, “This is not a novel to be thrown aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” Today’s question, without naming the author or title (unless you simply cannot restrain yourself), what is a book you’ve read that you hated? Did you force yourself to finish it? What was it about the book that made you want to throw it with “great force”?
Reader Friday: Subscription Service for Readers?
The reader subscription service Oyster has launched. Offering a library of 100,000 titles (with more to come), Oyster gives a reader unlimited access to their library for $9.95 a month. Think Netflix for e-books.
Market research: As a reader, is this something you might be interested in? What might it mean for writers?
Reader Friday: Quote Respond
Occasionally we’ll run a quote from a provocative post and ask you, dear readers, to respond to it. Today’s comes from author Lara Schiffbauer:
“Now, as we know, some writers have (what appears to be) lucky success. I’m not saying they don’t work hard, or aren’t talented. But, how many hard-working, talented writers do you know? That’s right. Quite a few, huh? And what makes any one writer who has that crazy-good success better than any of the others that you know? See what I mean? For every one lucky hard-working, talented writer there are many hard-working, talented authors who just didn’t have the stars align in quite the same way.”
Start a conversation in the comments!
Reader Friday: Report Your Progress!
Reader Friday: Which angels are you wrestling in your writing?
A famous author once said that as we improve our skills and craft as writers, “We begin wrestling with stronger angels.”
Which angel(s) are you currently wrestling with in your work?
Note: If anyone knows the name of the author that gave that quote, let us know his name in the comments. Google search is being absolutely no help this morning.
Reader Friday: Open Forum on Books and Publishing
Reader Friday: The Price is Right, Or Is It?
The pricing of ebooks is fodder for much discussion these days. I recently read one self-publishing advocate who says a strategy to pursue is writing scads of short stories and pricing them at $2.99 each. Unless your name is Stephen King, I’m not sure I would agree. Since full-length novels can be had for 99 cents and $2.99, wouldn’t most people think that a short story at $2.99 is too pricey? Worse, if the title is not clearly labeled “short story” and they get it and finish it in ten minutes, wouldn’t there be some blowback?
Maybe I’m wrong. So I’m throwing it open for a little market research. How do you readers feel about $2.99 for a short story?
Reader Friday: Why the Flops?
Looks like Disney’s $259 million reboot of The Lone Ranger is headed for Flop City. It follows another major disappointment, Sony’s $150 million White House Down. What do you suppose is going wrong?
On the positive side, what recent movies do you recommend?
