I started reading this book and a curious thing happened. Suddenly my house was sparkling clean, my bills were filed away, I started playing Farm Story and reached level 13 in one day, I did my tax, I spent two hours chatting to the chatbott, Jabberwocky...Anything, and I mean ANYTHING to avoid the boredom of reading Shiver.
Why does this happen? Obviously, not everyone likes the same books. This is a commonly known fact though, thus writers know this too. So here's a piece on the factors that play a role in what kind of people you atract with your book and how some writers use all kinds of tricks to get a certain public to read their books (conciously or not).
Title
The title is very important, for it is the first thing the people read, and gives the first impression. The title can change a lot; and so does the cover. Concerning covers, there are only two kind of people in the world. The ones that judge a book by it's cover and lyers. You know why? Because a cover tells a shitload of info on the book. - I have noticed that alliterations are common for lightweight humor novels. In my recommendations for humor books on goodreads here's what I found:
Alliteration is obviously popular in the humor section. And while i love alliteration, these books are not ment to make you think about life, and have new insights, ...
Also, two out of four of these books use steriotypes on their cover. Cheerleader vs gothic, Boys vs girls.
Risk? When your title is referring to something in your book, you might think that it is hilarious and witty, while others might not understand it and think your book is gonna suck. Also, when your title has too little to do with your story, that is deceiving too.
Words
Words are obviously an important factor in this devision. Short sentences are easy to follow, not a mind-breaker. Used through the entire book, this detemines who will read your books. Long phrases, difficult words, they add up to something entirely different than the first example.Risk? When using too many difficult words in one sentence, you sound like a smartass,
when using too less words, you sound stupid.
When putting too much information in one sentence, you make it sound like you don't think the readers are smart enough to get the implied information,
When putting too less information in one sentence, you sound tedious or confusing.
Build
This is the build of most of the stories out there, and is socially accepted as the norm:Normal - Something unusual happens < It gets better < Better > Something bad happens > Everyting gets worse (this may be subtle, or one thing makes everything fall at once) > Anticlimax < There is hope < Then everything turns out the way you wanted it to, Climax.
Risk? Your story might become predictable when structuring it too much while
on the opposite extreme, people like to be right and predict things so ... yeah.
Reasoning
The quantity of reasons for actions and behaviour you give, is also one of the most important factors of which public you're going to attract. Take this for example:we're in the anticlimax of the story and the maincharacters are apart (in this example, the boy and girl).
In story one the girl can't be with the boy, because she's a creature that his family is the enemy of. She's a vampire, or a dragon - he's a vampire/dragonhunter.
In story two the girl can't forgive the guy because he lied to her or he's done something really bad or unethical in the past which the girl just can't live with.
Which story do you think made me walk around like a zombie, halfcrying and snapping at everyone that talked to me?
Is it the story of which you know the girl will overcome her sad excuse to not be with the guy? Or is it the story of the girl who may not ever be with her love because of ethics, that makes you thing about them too, and what you would do if it happened to you?
Risk? Exposing too much of your argumentation, when unnecesairy, is boring, even when you think it's very important they know why person A did what he/she did. (I have some problems balancing this one out too). And not giving any reasons at all would give you typical cases of stupidity, miscomunication, which again, makes your story too predictable or the readers can't get into the character.
Tricks to keep people reading
-Make them feel better about themselves*by making the maincharacter do stupid things the reader knows not to do (making themselves feel smart) This does not work on me, I hate it when people do things they know not to do.
*by making the readers think that the stupid actions they do themselves are normal and forgivable by letting the maincharacter do them too, and giving it a happy ending.
Risk of stupid characters: you might not attract the brightest people, but those in search of justifying wrong actions. and while this might be most of the population, if you're honest, you've done it (maybe more than once) too.
-Make them sympathise with the main character
*by portraying him/her as a weak or not-so-witty or lovable and gullible person who doesn't think things through, makes mistakes (see point 1) or isn't able to handle the situation stewed upon him/her and needs a hero to rescue him/her. To clear this up: this seldom works for male characters.
Risk of weak main-character: this is a pattern of hero and victim, and people might hate weak needy characters, therefore you can make them overly self-sacrificing (even when needless) and selfless in compensation. eg: twilight.
-Mystery
*witholding information the main character does not know ( and may or may not want to know)
the main character does know, but doesn't tell
*giving information the main character does not know
Risk of mystery: witholding information for too long gets people annoyed or irritated, impatient people will get angry, etc... while too little mystery can't hold anyone's attention for long.
-Let them have what they can't have in real life
*by giving the readers the opportunity to feel emotions they normally wouldn't feel because they're never in this kind of situation
example: why do you think thrillers are so popular?
*by giving the maincharacter something that isn't easily attainable in real life
Risk of improbable situations: the story just isn't realistic enough
My advice when you're writing a book is: don't try to write what others will like. Write a story that you like. After all, it's your fantasy, and you can make everything you want happen.
Next time you're reading a book,
Think about that...
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