24 February 2010

What Readers Want

www.salon.com had an interesting article yesterday: A Reader's Advice to Writers. The bullet points are:
  1. Make your main character want something.
  2. Make your main character do something.
  3. The components of a novel that readers care about most are, in order: story, characters, theme, atmosphere/setting.
  4. Remember that nobody agrees on what a beautiful prose style is and most readers either can't recognize "good writing" or don't value it that much.
  5. A sense of humor couldn't hurt.

I think this is good advice for novelists and short story writers.

What do you think?

3 comments:

Deb S said...

Or keeping mind in the words of my nieces and nephews:

And then what happened?
Does he/she have any cool powers?

lesleylsmith said...

Good one, Deb! :)

Anonymous said...

Well... that's interessting but honestly i have a hard time figuring it... wonder what others have to say..