It’s My Favorite Because . . .

[MichaelSt]

What do you like most about the writing of your favorite author or particular book?

;) What’s your hook?

[Danger Jane]

I like the simplicity of the words and sentences.

[ZannaPerry]

Nice, flowing dialogue and scenes. A clear picture they bring to your imagination. The hook of the two main characters, but let's face it, if you don't feel anything for the characters, the book is pointless.

[MichaelSt]

Nice, flowing dialogue (PROSE?) and scenes (STRUCTURE?) A clear picture they bring to your imagination. (CLARITY?) The hook of the two main characters, (CHARACTERIZATION?) but let's face it, if you don't feel anything for the characters, (EMOTION?) the book is pointless.


Are you listing these elements in the order of their importance to you?

[ZannaPerry]

Not really. Just typing down what comes to my mind first. And if I had to pick it would be the characters. I gotta connect with the characters first.

[MichaelSt]

I tend to agree though I am a bit of a prose-snob. Boring word use turns me off faster than . . . ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Sorry, I must have drifted off there for a second.

[desertcomet]

I like how Orson Scott Card can use the POV of an unlikable character and make you understand them and love them.

[wayndom]

As I've mentioned before, A GARDEN OF SAND (and its sequels), by Earl Thompson, is the most visually evocative book I've ever read.

Ever read a Stephen King story, and get the sensation that you're watching a movie? When I read Thompson, it's similar, except that I feel like I'm watching real events unfold before my eyes.

[wayndom]

More generally, what I like best about all my favorite novels is that they show me the world through the eyes of someone or -thing completely unlike myself.

Gorky Park (a homicide detective in the Soviet Union), Shogun (the "inscrutable" mind-set of the classical Japanese), The Great Train Robbery (the almost equally inscrutable mind-set of the British in Victorian England), and Interview With the Vampire.

[Siddow]

The just-right details that paint a true picture. No long-winded descriptions, just perfect, concise details.

And play on words. I howled while reading Odd Thomas, when Odd and his girl are peeling out from in the front of the church, but instead of Koontz just saying they peeled out, or sped away, or floored it, he writes, "We left an offering of burnt rubber in front of St. Bart's..." lol, I really loved that line.

[Chasing the Horizon]

I like my favorite authors because they either have a beautiful, smooth way of putting words together, or create exceptional characters. I wish it wasn't a case of either/or, but I've never found someone really good at both.

[Priene]

Writers of sentences whose beauty makes me weep with jealousy. Like Salman Rushdie.

(I hope the plot first brigade won't do me for this. They seem like a feisty bunch.)

[Jamesaritchie]

I like falling inside the story and actually becoming tech protagonist as the story unfolds.

[Sassee]

It's all about the characters and plot. Beautiful prose is all well and good but if the story isn't there... *shrug*

[Manderley]

My favourite books are the ones that transport me away from my my own life and into the story.

I also enjoy good prose that makes me stop to enjoy a sentence or a way of putting something, but those kind of books are rarely among my favourites, simply because "the darlings" snap me out of the story. However, they can make an otherwise dull book worth reading. Like now, I'm reading The Long Goodbye by Chandler. The hardboiled PI genre is not one for me, but I keep turning the pages just to find those gems of phrases he uses.

[Shady Lane]

I like how I'm following the story along, feeling good, enjoying myself, and one line of fantastic dialogue just hits me in the stomach. And I have to stop and look up and go, "whoa."

[MichaelSt]

So, if beatific prose excites you, if scintillating imagery ignites you, does either one’s beauty warrant its stealing your thoughts away from the journey you’ve come to read?

Where is story?

[Shane Fitzsimmons]

Memorable characters.

Story to me, is secondary. A book can have a completely contrived, cliche story or theme and approach it with really spectacular characters and still be great.

It's much harder for a book to have a spectacular, original story and contrived, cliche, two-dimensional characters and still be a very good book. And even with the rare exceptions, I wouldn't want to read them.

[RG570]

I like it when they make me view something differently than I would have. I'm not into reading comfortable novels that reaffirm what I already think or believe; that to me is a boring novel.

That and originality is what my favourites have in common.

[sanssouci]

Writers of sentences whose beauty makes me weep with jealousy. Like Salman Rushdie.

(I hope the plot first brigade won't do me for this. They seem like a feisty bunch.)

This sums up my thoughts exactly.

Rushdie + the English language = magic

(Though I've always felt guilt and shame over the lack of plot in my own WIP...)

[zebedee]

Memorable characters and snappy dialogue. Flowery prose needs to exceptionally good to keep me interested.