A multi-part series where I address the question, When to stop reading?
You just put down some hard-earned moo-la on a new book. The copy makes it sound fantastic. You rush home just so you can start reading. You get about twenty-five pages in and it’s not grabbing you. Not a biggie—you haven’t given it enough time. You read on to page fifty. You’re starting to feel a little frustrated. When is this book going to get going? Still, maybe fifty pages isn’t enough, and you did just spend the equivalent of a couple of gallons of gas (or more) on it, so you read on. Page one hundred, and it still ain’t doing it for you. Frustration is spilling over, cause now you’ve not only wasted your money but you’ve got some time invested, too. Because of the latter, you press on, giving it one more chance. You reach page one hundred and fifty, and that’s it.
This goose is cooked.
It’s hard to simply cut off a book at a set number of pages. Some books are short, others are epics. It might even be just one book of many in a series, so perhaps you expect some slowness as it builds momentum. In those cases, perhaps a percentage rule makes more sense, like the 33% Rule.
Another one, the Page 99 Test, is based on a quote from Ford Madox Ford:
"Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you."
In any case, we all come to a point in a book that just isn’t doing it for us when we start thinking of putting it down. I used to never do such a thing. If I bought a book, I was going to finish it, no matter the cost. Now, however, I’m not above putting a book down when it fails to hold my interest, regardless of the investment. My own rule, however, isn’t so much based on page count as it is on the quality of the writing as well as where the story’s gone and where it might be going.
From a writer’s perspective, there’s an important lesson in all of this: Make sure you’re not only grabbing the reader’s attention but keeping it. Also, keep in mind that just because an editor or agent requests the first three chapters doesn’t mean they’re going to make it even that far. Often, in those cases, you might have only a few pages to hook the reader.
So, how many pages do you give a book before putting it down?
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