You've picked up a brand-new book and started to read the first page, where you encounter this sentence:
"She watched her host for a moment longer, then cast her eyes around the other people in the room."
What do you do?
A. Keep right on reading without a second thought.
B. Say, "Tsk, tsk, whatever happened to editing?"
C. Set the book aside without comment and pick up another one.
D. Hurl the book against the wall.
E. None of the above.
16 comments:
B, But if I see a lot more of that sort of crap, C+--complain about it on B and Dorothy-L and to my wife.
Depends. Am I reading a fantasy or horror novel about someone with the ability to remove his/her eyes?
Wait and see if she gets a nibble.
Mike Avallone, right?
Probably C. I might keep reading to see if there is more writing like that, but since there likely would be, I'd most likely put it back on the shelf.
What do I win?
I immediately feel that the writer is not in control of what he/she is writing which sets up a resistance in me. If the plot grabs me, I'll continue reading, but I'll be on the lookout for similar, um, turns of phrase, and I'll feel no shame in giving up on the book if I encounter too many more.
D is s little extreme, so probably C.
Well, reading that, I'd know it wasn't a Bill Crider book.
E. I have no class.
Nope, not Avo. I picked C for myself. I don't think I'll be going back to the book.
It sounds like the kind of book I wouldn't read in the first place.
I thought of Avo, too, when I read it.
It all depends: Is she naked?
I'd probably just keep on. The only thing that turns me off immediately is if it's boring. As the late Roger Ebert said about BASIC INSTINCT 2, "Is it godawful? Yes it's godawful! But it's never boring."
My first thought was Mike Abalone also. But, hey, those lines are famous. Just write them down and add to your upcoming book on "Do Not Write Like This" (LOL).
B for a first offense (assuming this *was* the first offense in the book), C for the second (unless the second was *really* egregious, in which case D). Life's too short to read bad writing.
I agree with Mike Stamm.
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