Literature And The Recipe To Turn A Book Into A Best Seller

Writing a book is not a piece of cake, and combined with the competition that is out there, the chances of seeing your creation being published are small. Many successful writers have had their books being turned down hundreds of times before the ship of time finally convinced someone to print them. One of the commonly rejected authors was Paulo Coelho. The novel that made him known to a large audience was no other than ”The Alchemist” which was his first book. The book was embraced by millions of readers from all over the world and encouraged Coehlo to write more novels that turned out to be huge bestsellers.

Today we will talk about the 3 key rules that protect a book from being a failure:

1. Easy to read
   Rule number one for a successful novel is to be easy to read. Consider the reader as a young child who prefers to go out and play with their friends rather than sit on a chair to explore the mysteries that the writer wants to share with them. While the emotions that a good book can bring out are valuable, it is essential for the reader to be convinced about the significance of the creation. Introducing readers to the subject and making them feel they want to connect with what you want to communicate is crucial. Especially the first pages are not easy to read because the reader is not engaged yet with the plot.
2. Descriptions
   Descriptions are what a book is about. They are important to activate the reader’s imagination and start picturing the scenery. Here is an interesting hint, though. Descriptions were very common in the books during the last centuries allowing people to have an idea about what things they had never seen could look like. Once traveling became easy, and airline companies started to have super cheap offers for the travelers, people became more aware of what foreign countries and mysterious places looked like. Tourism has become a trend, so describing how the furniture of a home in Paris looks to an American reader is not a spectacular idea. The reader is very likely to have gone to France and be already aware of the decoration there. In addition, the fact that we travel so much means that in many cases we may have in our own houses objects and technological products from other places. Globalization is present, and its effects are numerous. Finally, let us not forget that the invention of photography and video opened a whole new window in people’s cultural interaction. We see that not only traveling but also other forms of art allowed people to open their horizons, while in previous years, this was mainly achieved by reading books. Therefore, giving precise details in descriptions is not so popular nowadays. The new trend wants the writer to focus on describing their characters’ feelings rather than focusing on the clothes they wear or the way their house is built, etc. This is also a way to introduce the character to the readers while you allow them to reach their own conclusions. For example, if the author writes that one of the main heroes is mean, he does not leave many options to the reader. On the contrary, if the writer says that the hero is full of jealousy or hate, it leaves more freedom to the reader to decide what they will think about the character.
3. Dialogues
   A way to make a book easy to read is the presence of dialogues in the text. Wherever there are dialogues, pages can be read quickly since the reader does not have to think much to understand what is written. Dialogues also have the power to make the book seem more realistic. While describing sceneries or people’s feelings is important, dialogues have a more direct way to allow the author to say what they want. Descriptions and metaphors are always important, but sometimes they fail to provide the sense of vividness that dialogues introduce in the text. Let us not forget how Agatha Christie used dialogues in her own books and made them not only popular but also last in time.