The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel

by Jodie Archer

These are good writers, and with time and dedication almost all genuinely good writers will find their audience.

hmmm how do you know? Kind of a strange claim

After writing the now iconic On the Road, Jack Kerouac received a letter from an agent stating, “I don’t dig this one at all.”

same

This is the book that, when it was published, drew much reviewing attention because its white author had written so much of the prose in the imitated dialect of black characters. Opinions were divided about the efficacy of that narratorial choice: the model agreed entirely with the opinions of critics from the New York Times to Goodreads.

The model "agreed with the opinions"? Really? That makes it sound like the model was tuned to take this specific version of racial insensitivity into account..

Other very different bestsellers that have risen to success and critical acclaim through nontraditional channels are Mark Z. Danielewski’s experimental online novel House of Leaves and Chris Ware’s originally self-published Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, which is one of the most celebrated in a recent surge of graphic novels.

I had no idea House of Leaves was originally online! I always thought of it as one of those must-read-physically books

From that, our two-minute analysis might end with the conclusion that in studying this fascinating cultural construct called the NYT bestseller list, we have learned that the contemporary American public has an obsession with violence that could keep psychiatrists and sociologists busy for some time.

yes true

While Steel in particular claims to write about a very diverse set of themes—the World Wars, Wall Street, the fashion industry, illness, siblings, embezzlement, abortion—it turns out this apparent diversity is in small proportion.

Aren't those topics?

The second dominant topic in Fifty Shades is not BDSM either. It is something complementary to human closeness. This topic is about intimate conversation, which makes up another 13 percent of the novel, and reflects Ana’s emotional discussions not just with Christian but with her best friend, Kate, her mother, her friend José, and her stepfather.

I really don't think intimate conversation is a topic

A third important topic in James’s novel, accounting for roughly 10 percent of the topical DNA, is one that centers on nonverbal communication such as smiles, glances, and other facial expressions.

Also doesn't seem like a topic

We asked them: “When does your heartbeat increase?” “When do you feel anxiety in your gut?” “When do you feel the contraction of fear, or the stirring of arousal?” “When does the back of your neck prickle?” “When do you smile?” “When do you shout aloud a comment to a character or throw the book against the wall?”

oh so like when I'm watching Hillary and Donald debate???

The word “very”—a qualifying word that Strunk and White describe in their classic primer The Elements of Style as a “leech” that “infests the pond of prose”—is only about half as common in bestselling style as it is in books that don’t make it.

Classic leech-shaming. VERY uncool

Like the more informal contracted form of “not” as “n’t,” contractions in general repeatedly show up more in bestsellers. Dropping letters, while it might have been frowned upon in high school, is a good idea in writing popular prose because it helps create that believable, authentic, modern voice that is essential to winning over readers.

sort of surprising

Ten female authors with style 1. Emma Donoghue, Room

cool it is next on my to read!

The contextual setup and the words inside the quotation marks matter to effective characterization, not a distracting verb outside them. This is precisely why ask and say are bestselling verbs but demanded and exclaimed are not.

Huh this wouldn't be obvious to me

The dirt in the system at Hogwarts has been cleansed: without his nemesis in opposition to him Harry appears no longer to be provoked into heroism. In averageness the story cannot go on: there is no further narrative compulsion. The story finds its stillness. All is well.

...and then we got The Cursed Child

At the end of The Girl on the Train,

Geez I'm glad I have already read this..

It’s a little awkward. Dave Eggers wrote a novel full of warning about new and advanced technologies, in which his protagonist is measured by percentage points.

I wish I had already read the circle! I'm a little surprised by its GR average rating tbh but I will definitely read it now

Its answer? Jonathan Franzen. Freedom, it said, is its favorite literary novel. Oh dear. Was it not aware of the furor when Oprah Winfrey picked Jonathan Franzen, never mind a computer? Did it not know about the column inches that followed Oprah’s choice, about the fight between the highbrow and the lowbrow, the elite and the masses, good and bad writing, and whose business it is and is not to comment on such matters? It didn’t care.

lol. I'm still embarrassed that my GR staff pic is with Freedom. Someone should have lectured me about Franzen before I took that

Still, on occasion, you bump into a particularly provocative bot tweet that is just a little too profound, and you can’t help wondering, if only for a moment, about just how winking and sly these machine minds are becoming.

westworld