As writers we often hear that you only have some small amount of pages (10? 3? 1?) to hook the reader, so you’d better really grab them in the opening.
While “hook your readers early” is good advice for a writer, I was thinking today about how true the “X pages” thing actually is in practice. Are people out there really reading 10 pages of a book, putting it down, picking up another book, reading 10 pages of that, then 17 books later finally settling on a book to actually get into?
I may be the exception here, but I am usually judging the book up front on its cover, genre, and blurb, then if it sounds good enough I’ll dive in and usually go to the end. I usually won’t even start a book that doesn’t seem like my thing, unless it’s been recommended by someone with similar tastes. So I give books a lot more leeway. Is that better or worse? Not sure.
How do you do things?
by AtreidesOne
3 Comments
I have a 50 page rule.
I mostly do it like you, the book needs to seem interesting enough to start reading and if I start, I’ll stick to the end. If I stopped reading after 10 or 50 unimpressive pages, I would have missed out on some books that became my favourites.
Even if I still don’t like a book after having finished it, at least I now know more about what I dislike and can apply that knowledge when choosing the next book.
I give it a good 75 pages. If by that time, I don’t care, I’m putting it down.