Second chapter becomes the first chapter if you throw away the first chapter, should you also throw that away? I guess Zeno would approve. Vonnegut's advice and most if not all of the common advice given to aspiring writers has truth in it but it tends to be too pithy for its own good. The first chapter needs to lay the groundwork for everything that follows and this applies for everything from genre and essays to the complicated and experimental works of literary fiction. Why should the reader care?
Vonnegut is ultimately pushing back against the old saw of the captivating first sentence, many aspiring writers fall into the trap of trying start their book by trying to captivate the reader at cost of laying that foundation; if I can just word this opening paragraph perfectly, the readers will be hooked. It is a fairly dishonest way to go about things. Everything the reader needs to know about what you are writing needs to be covered in that first chapter or paragraph or chapters or section or whatever metric applies to what you are writing, the trick is that you need to present it in a way that does not spoil everything to come.
If you get fixated on captivating the reader with the opening, tossing the first chapter and reworking the second is decent advice, but it might be better to just rework the first. All of these pithy bits of writing advice have truth in them and have a great deal to teach you but far too many aspiring writers tend to accept them as dogma.
Why would "A blue Ford just parked in front of the door. Jim still hasn't truly fully woken up but he was already making breakfast..." incite me to read the book?
Compare that to The Poppy War which I just discovered:
"Take your clothes off. Rin blinked. What? Cheating prevention protocol."
Unrelated to the idea, but this website strangely blocks `Alt+←` and `Alt+→` to cycle through browser history.
Edit: It seems the website overrides the `←` and `→` arrow keys specifically, and using `event.preventDefault()` causes the problem. I think it's good practice to ignore keys with modifiers in such a situation.
It's not "blocked", the person implementing it just forgo any sort of browser history usage when creating the website/"app", and the entire thing is controlled 100% in their own JS code. I guess author only had their specific mobile use in mind when creating it? Maybe swiping for back/forward works if you view it on the phone?
Would not recommend for fiction - at least not mass market fiction. But Mortimer probably felt those were not reading, and the method would work for him :-)
When I read How To Read a Book, I was quite impressed. In practice ... it's not very useful for the types of book I read. Likely better for deeper, philosophical books (including fiction of that category).
For a lot of fiction books, my rule is to read the first 50 pages. If I'm not engaged, move on. Life is short. I believe Stephen King also used that heuristic. It's fine if you miss out on some great books. You're not going to get to read all of them anyway.
Ignoring whether this is a good business, I feel like this is a pretty terrible way to judge a book. If it took off it would result in everyone just starting their book with a real hook, which only works for a small number of genres and only if nothing else needs to be setup before "hooking" (simple "nothing is unfamiliar" stories).
I've read plenty of books on recommendation that I think are great, but they were not the kind of books that could start with a hook I think.
But, the counterargument to this is if it helps people start books, then who cares if it is an effective strategy or not.
> But, the counterargument to this is if it helps people start books, [...].
It certainly doesn't. Not that it matters to people who love reading books, for they know judging a whole book by its first page(s), or based on some formula extracted from one of those silly self-improvement tomes, is just ridiculous (especially the latter reminiscent of "Pritchard's graph" from Dead Poets Society).
When I visit a bookstore, I will look for things I recognize/want. But I also will open random books and read the first page to see if anything hooks me. I try to come away from any bookstore visit with one book I've never heard of and may have never been recommended otherwise. This is a nice recreation of that experience (sans the paper smell).
Clicked the link. Selected "Literary". First sample was quite good. Vaguely caught the name of the author. Closed page. Then decided to go back. Could not find the first sample which I decided I might want to read. Got just enough of the author name to get Google to find "Colson Whitehead" when I entered "Colston". The book was "Cool Machine". Went to borrow it from Sno-Isle.org. Placed a hold on the physical book. Number 51 in the hold line (all time record for my holds -- got plenty to read until its likely availability). Glad I found this site, but on my second visit did not find any "Literary" first pages that resonated. Blind luck. Good site idea though. HTH, NSC
And as for Frank Herbert's Dune, I gave it a try. I read the first two books, and was 20% of my way through the third when I realized that "No, this whole story is not going to get good ever."
Should have just stopped after a few pages of the first book :-)
The button on the homepage is hardcoded to this book, which I find extremely strange. Why not choose a random book, and why pick such a confusing quote?
I think the reveal button is counted as an upvote for the book because it supposedly discovered my taste and it was based on th books I revealed, but not bookmarked.
Kurt Vonnegut advocated for writers to throw away the first chapter of their book. He liked to drop the reader into the thick of it immediately.
Second chapter becomes the first chapter if you throw away the first chapter, should you also throw that away? I guess Zeno would approve. Vonnegut's advice and most if not all of the common advice given to aspiring writers has truth in it but it tends to be too pithy for its own good. The first chapter needs to lay the groundwork for everything that follows and this applies for everything from genre and essays to the complicated and experimental works of literary fiction. Why should the reader care?
Vonnegut is ultimately pushing back against the old saw of the captivating first sentence, many aspiring writers fall into the trap of trying start their book by trying to captivate the reader at cost of laying that foundation; if I can just word this opening paragraph perfectly, the readers will be hooked. It is a fairly dishonest way to go about things. Everything the reader needs to know about what you are writing needs to be covered in that first chapter or paragraph or chapters or section or whatever metric applies to what you are writing, the trick is that you need to present it in a way that does not spoil everything to come.
If you get fixated on captivating the reader with the opening, tossing the first chapter and reworking the second is decent advice, but it might be better to just rework the first. All of these pithy bits of writing advice have truth in them and have a great deal to teach you but far too many aspiring writers tend to accept them as dogma.
It's first chapters all the way down!
Seriously.
Why would "A blue Ford just parked in front of the door. Jim still hasn't truly fully woken up but he was already making breakfast..." incite me to read the book?
Compare that to The Poppy War which I just discovered:
"Take your clothes off. Rin blinked. What? Cheating prevention protocol."
Unrelated to the idea, but this website strangely blocks `Alt+←` and `Alt+→` to cycle through browser history.
Edit: It seems the website overrides the `←` and `→` arrow keys specifically, and using `event.preventDefault()` causes the problem. I think it's good practice to ignore keys with modifiers in such a situation.
It's not "blocked", the person implementing it just forgo any sort of browser history usage when creating the website/"app", and the entire thing is controlled 100% in their own JS code. I guess author only had their specific mobile use in mind when creating it? Maybe swiping for back/forward works if you view it on the phone?
I always follow the rule in the book "How to Read a Book": give the book a superficial reading to decide if it is worth reading deeply and carefully.
Would not recommend for fiction - at least not mass market fiction. But Mortimer probably felt those were not reading, and the method would work for him :-)
When I read How To Read a Book, I was quite impressed. In practice ... it's not very useful for the types of book I read. Likely better for deeper, philosophical books (including fiction of that category).
For a lot of fiction books, my rule is to read the first 50 pages. If I'm not engaged, move on. Life is short. I believe Stephen King also used that heuristic. It's fine if you miss out on some great books. You're not going to get to read all of them anyway.
I use Mortimer's system for non-fiction works, which is where it makes the most sense.
I would also use it if I was doing a really deep dive in a fiction work.
For most fiction that I am reading for entertainment, the first 50ish pages will tell me if its worth finishing.
Can’t recommend the book enough, taught me a lot of tricks
Yes. It fundamentally changed how I read a book. I go back to it every once a while and always find new things to apply every time.
Ignoring whether this is a good business, I feel like this is a pretty terrible way to judge a book. If it took off it would result in everyone just starting their book with a real hook, which only works for a small number of genres and only if nothing else needs to be setup before "hooking" (simple "nothing is unfamiliar" stories).
I've read plenty of books on recommendation that I think are great, but they were not the kind of books that could start with a hook I think.
But, the counterargument to this is if it helps people start books, then who cares if it is an effective strategy or not.
> But, the counterargument to this is if it helps people start books, [...].
It certainly doesn't. Not that it matters to people who love reading books, for they know judging a whole book by its first page(s), or based on some formula extracted from one of those silly self-improvement tomes, is just ridiculous (especially the latter reminiscent of "Pritchard's graph" from Dead Poets Society).
Still better than judging by the cover. Also, it is important to know that there aren't any deal breakers in the author's style.
When I visit a bookstore, I will look for things I recognize/want. But I also will open random books and read the first page to see if anything hooks me. I try to come away from any bookstore visit with one book I've never heard of and may have never been recommended otherwise. This is a nice recreation of that experience (sans the paper smell).
exactly my thoughts too, this is a great way to digitally recreate the bookstore experience :)
Clicked the link. Selected "Literary". First sample was quite good. Vaguely caught the name of the author. Closed page. Then decided to go back. Could not find the first sample which I decided I might want to read. Got just enough of the author name to get Google to find "Colson Whitehead" when I entered "Colston". The book was "Cool Machine". Went to borrow it from Sno-Isle.org. Placed a hold on the physical book. Number 51 in the hold line (all time record for my holds -- got plenty to read until its likely availability). Glad I found this site, but on my second visit did not find any "Literary" first pages that resonated. Blind luck. Good site idea though. HTH, NSC
I don't know, I think some books like for example Frank Herbert's need a couple more pages to set up the scene.
Also, some of the best tv shows I watched need a couple episodes build up to get a nice payout.
I don't think the site is claiming otherwise.
And as for Frank Herbert's Dune, I gave it a try. I read the first two books, and was 20% of my way through the third when I realized that "No, this whole story is not going to get good ever."
Should have just stopped after a few pages of the first book :-)
Ha, I love Dune personally, but it definitely doesn't get better after that.
It's a good thing that people have different preferences
maybe it is mostly books, but the first one it served me was a /r/aita post
https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781538704448
Yeah, same for me. I was confused.
But click "Reveal". This is in fact a book.
I believe that's a fiction/in universe reddit post
The button on the homepage is hardcoded to this book, which I find extremely strange. Why not choose a random book, and why pick such a confusing quote?
I think the reveal button is counted as an upvote for the book because it supposedly discovered my taste and it was based on th books I revealed, but not bookmarked.
That makes sense. "I read some and wanted to read more" is a useful metric like an upvote (it doesn't have to mean "I know I like this" to be useful).
If that is true, it's bad design. The site definitely needs a dislike button too, while we're at it...
The world needs more delightful websites that do one clever thing well like this. Turns out I need to read Percival Everett!
If the book is boring after the 40th page then it's not for you.
5th page *
This is basically an ad for recent books the maker likes or gets paid to promote and the selection is hot garbage
Another day, another rotten candy apple for giggling postliterates.