What is it about a piece of writing that makes it appeal to you? Is it the characters, the plot, the emotions, the use of language or something entirely different?
What is it about a piece of writing that makes it appeal to you? Is it the characters, the plot, the emotions, the use of language or something entirely different?
Something which at first you believe will be particularly dull and then Bam! The book knows it has got you.
Writing that absorbs me, and keeps me turning the pages.
What makes me "like" a piece of writing?
I have never even begun to consider that.
It would seem far more significant to me to consider what about a piece of writing keeps me reading it...
To which it would probably be far more easy to reply with the negative considerations of what will stop me from reading something.
There are (of course) genres that I would never go near - which is essentially a matter of personal preference - or dislike (depending on which way you look at it).
Grammar is significant - but - at least in the material I would pick up to consider - even poor grammar is pretty rare in published works - probably because the publishers screen poor grammar out.
I will admit that the busier I become the more that anything that I might read has to grab me pretty fast. The first page(s) do have to get my attention - and (I suspect) that the language used is very significant in that.
I have recently read books that "stray" from the "standard English" to "Irish English" and "English within an African mind-set" (for want of better ways to describe them...
In the first few pages there is no way that any of these three is likely to be able to grab my attention with plot, character or emotions... So - it has to be "something entirely different"... Whatever that might be...
Perhaps it is "curiosity"? Perhaps it is a triggering of interest into "what is going on?" or "what is happening?"
I think, however, that to some degree the cover and the title will have started this process before I ever pick a book up... I probably don't pick up more than 95% of the books I look at - so - what makes me go for the ones that I do lay hands on?
Then again - I probably put back down 90% of the books I do look at - and - I do that quite quickly...
Now here's a thing to consider... (I was discussing this with some other writers the other day)... The type face can, I am certain, have an unconscious to me impact on how much time I will initially look at a page for.
Research has shown that black print on white paper is the most difficult for the brain to process - which begs the question - why do publishers stick with black on white?
This could be progressed to questions about what fonts are most suitable for specific genres. I wonder if any publishers do work on this?
I know that one of the writers I was talking to is going to experiment with different page appearances to see how that impacts their writing... which is the obverse face of how it might influence the reader. should we write with a font that we find comfortable but, perhaps, publish in another that will be better for the reader - and even better for the reader of a specific genre?
Then, naturally, one might ask - are there gender variations???
The first thing to do is...
Just write.
:-)