We specialize in hard to find items
(1)
Hit Lit: Cracking the Code of the Twentieth Century's Biggest Bestsellers
Share Tweet
*Price and Stocks may change without prior notice
*Packaging of actual item may differ from photo shown
- Electrical items MAY be 110 volts.
- 7 Day Return Policy
- All products are genuine and original
About Hit Lit: Cracking The Code Of The Twentieth
Product Description DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF WHAT MAKES A MEGA-BESTSELLER IN THIS ENTERTAINING, REVELATORY GUIDE What do Michael Corleone, Jack Ryan, and Scout Finch have in common? Creative writing professor and thriller writer James W. Hall knows. Now, in this entertaining, revelatory book, he reveals how bestsellers work, using twelve twentieth-century blockbusters as case studies—including The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Jaws. From tempting glimpses inside secret societies, such as submariners in The Hunt for Red October, and Opus Dei in The Da Vinci Code, to vivid representations of the American Dream and its opposite—the American Nightmare—in novels like The Firm and The Dead Zone, Hall identifies the common features of mega-bestsellers. Including fascinating and little-known facts about some of the most beloved books of the last century, Hit Lit is a must-read for fiction lovers and aspiring writers alike, and makes us think anew about why we love the books we love. Review “Passionately and thoroughly entertaining....Hall examines 12 of the most successful novels of the 20th century and ‘reverse-engineer[s]’ them, mining their separate defining qualities and their comparative appeal to readers…Referential and cleverly elucidated, the book raises many good points about the precise methodology of bestselling novels.”--Kirkus Reviews “Fascinating. Every would-be writer, and every knowledgeable reader, should read this book. It brings a valid understanding to publishing phenomena that seemingly were unexplainable. With this book, you see the forest and the trees.”--MICHAEL CONNELLY “I learned more about fashioning a bestseller from Hit Lit than from any other book, or any experience, I’ve encountered in my thirty-five years as an editor and publisher. Even established and successful authors need this guide.”--OTTO PENZLER About the Author James W. Hall is the author of seventeen novels, four books of poetry, two short-story collections, and a book of essays. He’s also the winner of the Edgar and Shamus awards. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. chapter 1 FEATURE #1 An Offer You Can't Refuse The most difficult thing in the world is to make things simple enough, and enticing enough, to cause readers to turn the page. -HELEN GURLEY BROWN, FORMER EDITOR OF COSMOPOLITAN Some tricks of the trade that make our bestsellers unputdownable. When Coleridge's Ancient Mariner intercepts an impatient guest who's rushing to a wedding, and grabs hold with his skinny hand and glittering eye, and proceeds to mesmerize the man with his haunting sea story, Coleridge has given us a nifty metaphor for the foremost mission of a bestseller writer. These books grip you and refuse to let you loose until they've finished their tale. For the popular audience, first and foremost a novel must be entertaining. It's a fact so painfully obvious, I shudder to say it. For a novel to rise to the sales level of these twelve blockbusters, it must be a page-turner. A book you can't put down, that you want to read in a gulp. One that keeps you up all night. Gripping. Edge of your seat. Mesmerizing. Fast-paced. Spellbinding. A roller-coaster thrill ride. Unputdownable. Novelist and historian Les Standiford, a university colleague of mine, is fond of telling roomfuls of aspiring novelists, "The only place people read books they are not interested in is college." The focus of this chapter is twofold. First I'll share what my students and I came to call the "mechanics of speed." Various ways in which writers initially engage readers, then keep them securely hooked while moving fast through a few hundred pages. Then we'll look beyond narrative devices at the other key ingredients that helped these twelve novels seize the attention of so many readers. MOVIE-FRIENDLY Hollywood filmmakers can teach us a thing or two about speed, for moviemakers have turned storytelling into a science, using cer
