Hmmmm. Getting that article to open properly turned out to be a lot harder than I had planned. For whatever reason, clicking the link just took me to EBSCO's logon page. But! when I logged on to NoveList first, it fixed it. This was on a staff computer, mind you. Very odd. In any case....
Appeal factors! Woooooooo! This strongly appeals to me.
Thinking about this in my usual semi-serious manner, I'm led to believe that appeal factors are often the origin of the "judge a book by its cover" cliche. I type this keeping in mind that I haven't actually read the article. The will be a time passes device.
*** 20 minutes later ***
Pacing: you were going how fast? Game of Thrones is relatively fast paced, but the story is (almost painfully) slow to unfold. Raising Steam is a quickly unfolding story, but the characters and locations don't change very much giving it a slower pace.
Characterization: who are these people? We look to develop a connection with at least one character throughout a work and sometimes it isn't who (or what) we expect. Jon Snow may be your go to guy, but did you ever think you'd form more of a connection with the Enterprise than with Capt. Kirk? That can happen. Inanimate objects can be as important characters in a story then the real people. Just ask Harold Crick....
Story line: what is this all about? The basic story is all we want. Everything will be filled in later. If the basic story sounds interesting, you're almost sure to like the details.
Language: they said what? "This is a fantastically well written book! But the story is slow and plodding."
"I loved the story, but the author needs to be beaten with the adverb stick. Waaaaay to many of them."
The quality of writing can have just as much an effect on the enjoyment of a book as any other factor. Good grammar is sexy, after all.
Setting: where is that again? The Lord of the Rings books are full of wonderful descriptions of the fictional landscape of Middle-Earth but The Martian leaves the reader to fill in the gaps using their own imaginative view of the martian landscape. Both of these places are fantastical settings, but the books go about presenting them to the reader in two different ways which appeal to some but not to others.
Detail: would you look at that? Precision is one thing, but too much detail and person can get lost. Spend 15 pages talking about the way a person moves and you might lose readers. At them same time, there may be some readers that find the description of ballerina balancing on the tip of their toes before turning into the most intricate of spirals to be the most inspiring thing they ever read and lead them to become a ballerina.
Tone: what did that mean? Books have different meanings depending on the tone presented by the author. The same sentence in a dystopian teen novel would have a much different meaning when read in a popular comedian's biography. Probably. Hmmm. Those could actually very similar depending on the comedian. But I digress....
Learning/Experiencing: why did they do that? Learning doesn't just come from non-fiction books. Aesop's Fables taught us that centuries ago. People want books to be something to help them grow in intellect or skill or in character. Many books have messages hidden within them (whether the author actually put them there or not) that are studied by students in various schools all around the world to improve themselves and maybe the rest of humanity as well.
In terms of the ways of working with appeal...
...I've often used the first method as a reference interview question to get things rolling. It is a good way to find out, generally, what a reader wants.
The Saricks method is also very useful, though I think it is probably pretty limited. Most of the four groups could intermingle genres.
The Pearl method would probably be the hardest fr me to work with, mostly because I don't understand the doorways. With a little time, I could probably figure it out.
I might see what I can do about using all three method for the next assignment. Stay posted.
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