With few exceptions, I give authors one page to draw me in and motivate me to continue.
I give blogs one sentence.
22 Words
Experiments in getting to the point.16 Comments »
KP wrote @ March 7, 2008 at 5:51 pm
And-1-word-for-comments.
grrrarrrg wrote @ March 7, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Agreed.
Mark Olson wrote @ March 7, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I teach my daughters to give a book 50 pages … not one.
If you aren’t impressed by the first page of The Brother’s Karamazov do you give up?
Eric Schumacher wrote @ March 7, 2008 at 9:35 pm
You lost me after “with few exceptions…”
Just kidding.
22 Words is the blog that I look forward to reading most. Excellent.
Marc wrote @ March 7, 2008 at 10:06 pm
You had me at hello.
proverbs31 wrote @ March 7, 2008 at 11:23 pm
I agree, Mark. Example: In H.S. I barely made it past the beginning of “A Tale of Two Cities”.. it got better.
Dave Miers wrote @ March 7, 2008 at 11:48 pm
i agree.
books: one page
blogs: one sentence
movies: 10 seconds after the opening titles
Mary Decker wrote @ March 8, 2008 at 2:30 am
generous is not the word i’d choose. efficient?
Michael wrote @ March 8, 2008 at 9:57 am
Are you speaking about unknown authors, or works you are not familiar with? If you are recommended a book, you read the first page, are not drawn in, then would you tell the person who recommended it, “I couldn’t get past the first page?” Curious.
Abraham Piper wrote @ March 8, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Part of me doesn’t want to cut any slack for old books. Another part of me knows that if I’m going to read any old books I have to treat them a little differently.
In the case of “The Brothers Karamazov,” I didn’t give up until page 146. But I still gave up, so I guess I might as well have just given it up after one page and saved myself the time.
I know that sounds stark and uncultured, but there simply isn’t time to give books 50 pages before judging them–even ones that have been recommended. (Although, of course, some recommendations carry more weight than others.)
So I think I’m going to stick with saying I’m being “generous,” not just efficient, to give a book one page to win me over.
Almost 200,000 books are published a year in just the U.S. For me to even pick one up or look at it on Amazon is a huge benefit to that author and publisher. That I would read any of it is going above and beyond.
What I want to discover on that first page is that I’m not actually doing the author a favor because the content is valuable to me. If he’s offering value, then reading that book will be beneficial to both me and the author, and it becomes an even trade–not me doing him a favor anymore.
But if he is not interested enough in me as his potential audience to show me what he’s got to offer right up front, then I just put the book back down. If he does show me, and it’s intriguing, I will happily read 400 pages.
(I hope this is evidence to everyone that comments can be longer than 22 words. Thanks for reading!)
jenna wrote @ March 8, 2008 at 2:49 pm
i didn’t read your whole comment because the first sentence sucked.
i’m kidding.
John Murphy wrote @ March 8, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Dude. I do the same thing. Don’t have time for lousy books or poorly-written blogs.
John Murphy wrote @ March 8, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Oh…and another thing. Brevity and brilliance are why Emily Dickinson is the greatest poet in history!
Sharon wrote @ March 10, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Love this site. Have forwarded it to my brother who is a wise man of few words as well.
Dan wrote @ March 17, 2008 at 9:46 am
Stanley Fish gives mystery novels one sentence: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/28/opinion/edfish.php
Robin (PENSIEVE) wrote @ April 29, 2008 at 9:17 am
crap…..
must.work.HARDER!
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