The three basic reader responses

They're to be found between the covers of The Da Vinci Code. And Carrie. And The Five People You Meet In Heaven. And Twilight. And The Time Traveler's Wife. And The Box Man. And The Road. And The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. And The Sea. And The Great Gatsby. And A Farewell To Arms. And Ender's Game. And Bridget Jones's Diary. And a whole bunch of others.

But I imagine that all of those books got all three of your reader responses, in varying degrees.

4. WTF???

Let's just hope that won't be the agent's reaction to it. If it is, I suspect no reader will ever have a chance to react to the WIP anyway.

... if you find out let me know ;-)
You're not the only one out there on the perimeter.

1. Ahhhhhhh, niceeee.

2. Ahh, not bad.

3. Oh, interesting.

4. Eh?!

5. No response. It goes straight back on the shelf.


That's my view.

How about "Ewwww!" ?

This is the one you really don't want:

"...I have no wish to inveigh against you objurgations- however I feel as though it is necessary to inform you that I am lost most often in pedantic metaphors possessing of intricate syntactical feats of grammar, rather than in any thought processes on the characters behalf...."

True story. I'm not even sure what it means.

*Goes off to practice intricate syntactical feats of grammar.... with no net*

Cool thread. I think there may be two variations on #1, as set forth to me once by a Senior Ad Man: I never thought of that before...or I never thought of it that way.

That's cute, Blacbird, but not entirely accurate. Readers generally have a lot more to say about the books they read (at least in my world). I've heard a whole range of expressions from readers about books they do and do not like, including anything from a short summary to full-blown conversations between two or more people who have read the book.

In keeping with your theme, however, I admit I want at minimum the first reaction from a reader. But, since no piece of literature out there is perfect, I want to hear both the upside and downside from an agent or publisher.

heza said:

This is the one you really don't want:

"...I have no wish to inveigh against you objurgations- however I feel as though it is necessary to inform you that I am lost most often in pedantic metaphors possessing of intricate syntactical feats of grammar, rather than in any thought processes on the characters behalf...."

True story. I'm not even sure what it means.

*Goes off to practice intricate syntactical feats of grammar.... with no net*

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Did you respond, Heza? And if so, how? Reading that I wouldn't know whether to say "thanks!" or find them and punch them in the face.

Posting in this thread to try to get blaccy to caw at me.

I've done "yeah, right." for a negative.

I think the best reader response would be silence as they devoured your book.

blacbird said:

The techniques of getting Number One and avoiding the other two aren't to be found in a Writer's Cookbook. I wish to goddam hell I knew where they could be found, but Dan Brown took 'em and hid 'em someplace, I'm pretty sure.

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You won't find a formula for them because there isn't a formula that will guarantee you hit #1 for all readers. There isn't a book that does that. You just have to write a book that makes you give the #1 response and then hope that there are more people like you out there.

I'm quite happy with a 'sob'.

As long as it's not a 'sob, why did I waste my time on this book!'

scarletpeaches said:

Posting in this thread to try to get blaccy to caw at me.

Click to expand...

Caw.

I cawed at you. Is that enough?

I'd like to add "Meh," as a response, meaning "Take it or leave it, could go either way. I'll probably check it out from the library at some point." That is my reaction to most books, to tell you the truth--my curiosity is piqued, but not enough to spend money on it immediately. It's the reading equivalent of waiting for the DVD.