Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
Please read more carefully what I write. And agent might read 3 pages and decide that the prose is publishable but that does not mean that the book will be published in the version that is submitted to the editor.
I personally have to read the whole book to see if I like it. I bad ending usually destroys an otherwise good book for me.
I want to read only good books. I do not want to read just OK books. And I still do not believe you can distinguish between Ok books and good books just reading a couple of paragraphs.
If the prose is bad of course everybody can detect that in a couple of paragraphs. But a good book do not just consist of prose you like. It also should have a good plot and it must be internally constistent and do on.
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I believe you're wrong on basically everything you say, and also you're terribly condescending in assuming that I did not understand what you wrote in the first place.
Books need neither plot nor do they have to have much consistency. Some of the greatest works of literature are essentially 'plotless' and might consist of vignettes or moments stolen from life, or anything else that takes the authors fancy. Plot has never been the best yardstick of a good novel, nor has prose, to be frank. Hemmingway's prose is flat and without style (a stylistic consideration, I'll give you that) and there isn't much of a plot to a story like "The Old Man & the Sea" - Man goes out to catch fish, man catches fish, fish escapes, man returns.
I also want to read only good books, not just OK books, but I don't think the traditional publishers have any more of a grasp on what is great and what is OK than do I when I make my own decisions on the culture I obtain.