The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel
Here is an experiment to try when picking your next book to read. Instead of taking a friend’s recommendation or picking up a book by an author or in a genre you already know, try reading one entire week’s NYT list in succession. Do it with your book club or your English class. If you read with good attention, you’ll become a bit like our machines
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Sounds like an experiment worth trying.
The reader’s choice was and still is the only vote. The term “bestseller,” then, should carry no intrinsic comment on quality or type of book, and is not a synonym for either “genre” or “popular fiction.” While the word has often been used pejoratively by some members of the literary establishment, who have felt that the collective taste of the rea
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But “The” remains the most successful way to begin a title because it is a word that implies agency focused somewhere, be that focus on a place, on an event, on an object, or somewhere else. The title gives us a clue about how to relate to the story that follows.
Jodie Archer • The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel
"The" Ohio State. "The" Bestseller Code.
Amy and Nick’s use of the word need captures their marriage perfectly, and to read a spreadsheet of these extracted sentences is to quickly experience the mounting tension between them. Nick says, “I need a drink.” Amy says, “I needed to be ambushed, caught unawares, like some feral love-jackal.” Nick says, “I don’t feel the need to explain my acti
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I loved this book and did not consciously recognize this important indicator. The characters are saying straight-up what they need, no matter how childish, at almost all times. They are all impulse and action, even when having domestic conversations in the home.
Larsson’s original title was Men Who Hate Women, a phrase that was so disagreeable to the UK publishers that they changed it. It was likely the right decision. There are few fiction readers who would disagree that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is more alluring than Men Who Hate Women, especially given the fact that the majority of fiction readers
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It is almost impossible to fathom how bad that original title is. Changing those several words was critical.
Until authors find the right solution and place for this dark girl figure, we predict she will keep turning up on the bestseller lists.
Jodie Archer • The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel
I wager it is not authors, but society at large, that needs to find common ground with them. They are popular because they spark response. When they no longer achieve that, we'll move on to something else.
In silence, we took several novels and asked students to raise their hand when they felt their body viscerally respond in any way to what they were reading. At first, they thought we were crazy. But after some classes, we noted that with NYT bestsellers their hands had all gone up within the first ten pages. With non-bestsellers, this was not so of
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The bestsellers grab you early.
our notion of character, among the many to choose from, is that a character must do things, and that doing is their agency.
Jodie Archer • The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel
Characters without agency are wallpaper and detract from the story.
In bestselling fiction, the ellipsis is common because it is one way of creating an unspoken understanding between character and reader. Readers like it.