{"id":1613,"date":"2011-12-06T07:11:19","date_gmt":"2011-12-06T15:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orcutt.net\/weblog\/?p=1613"},"modified":"2012-05-20T13:22:57","modified_gmt":"2012-05-20T13:22:57","slug":"1000-mysteries-and-the-ideal-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/1000-mysteries-and-the-ideal-reader\/","title":{"rendered":"1,000 Mysteries and the Ideal Reader"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>A com\u00admon piece of advice giv\u00aden to writ\u00aders is to envi\u00adsion your ide\u00adal read\u00ader and write your book to that per\u00adson. And although I did\u00adn\u2019t do that when I wrote A Real Piece of Work<\/em> (I wrote it for myself first and an audi\u00adence sec\u00adond), I did have in mind one read\u00ader whose atten\u00adtion and respect I hoped to gain: my great and gen\u00ader\u00adous friend, Jason Scott.<\/p>\n

Recent\u00adly, after some mild prod\u00adding on my part, Jason post\u00aded a review of the book on Ama\u00adzon, declar\u00ading that \u201cI for one hope that the series goes on for\u00adev\u00ader,\u201d and mak\u00ading oth\u00ader lush and lauda\u00adto\u00adry com\u00adments about my book. And I\u2019m grate\u00adful for all of his praise.<\/p>\n

But the thing I\u2019m proud\u00adest about has to do with a crit\u00adi\u00adcal fact about him\u00adself that Jason left out. Jason, you see, has read over 1,000 mys\u00adter\u00adies and thrillers. Think about that: a THOUSAND books in two close\u00adly-relat\u00aded gen\u00adres.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Not Jason\u2019s pile, but it does eeri\u00adly resem\u00adble the piles I saw around his house when I helped him move.<\/p><\/div>\n

He\u2019s the only per\u00adson I know who has read every sin\u00adgle one <\/em>of Agatha Christie\u2019s nov\u00adels, all<\/em> of Dick Fran\u00adcis\u2019s work, all<\/em> of Chan\u00addler, Park\u00ader, Mac\u00adDon\u00adald (Ross & John D.), Cain, Le Car\u00adr\u00e9, Flem\u00ading, Lud\u00adlum, West\u00adlake, Block, Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sher\u00adlock Holmes), and many more. Even I, a writer of this stuff, can\u2019t make this claim.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s read over 1,000 mys\u00adter\u00adies and thrillers by those esteemed authors, and he now ranks my nov\u00adel, A Real Piece of Work<\/em>, among the best of them. I can\u2019t describe what an hon\u00ador this is.<\/p>\n

But what makes his review and assess\u00adment of my book so mean\u00ading\u00adful to me is that I know he does\u00adn\u2019t give idle praise. Jason does\u00adn\u2019t do<\/span> quid pro quo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If he likes a thing, he says he likes it, and it does\u00adn\u2019t mat\u00adter who<\/em> cre\u00adat\u00aded it; how\u00adev\u00ader, if he dis\u00adlikes a thing, he can be bru\u00adtal in his crit\u00adi\u00adcisms, and again it does\u00adn\u2019t mat\u00adter who cre\u00adat\u00aded the thing. For exam\u00adple, one of the sub\u00adjects for which he became semi-noto\u00adri\u00adous is Wikipedia, and his speech \u201cThe Great Fail\u00adure of Wikipedia<\/a>,\u201d while per\u00adhaps not unas\u00adsail\u00adable in terms of its log\u00adic, does a mas\u00adter\u00adful job of rais\u00ading ques\u00adtions about the infor\u00adma\u00adtion giant\u2014questions that, at the time (2006), no one else was ask\u00ading.<\/p>\n

Obvi\u00adous\u00adly I wrote the nov\u00adel hop\u00ading that all mys\u00adtery read\u00aders would love it. But know\u00ading that\u2019s an impos\u00adsi\u00adbil\u00adi\u00adty, I\u2019ll set\u00adtle for the praise and respect of the guy who\u2019s read over 1,000 of them.<\/p>\n

Here, by the way, in case you\u2019re curi\u00adous, is Jason\u2019s review of A Real Piece of Work<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A com\u00admon piece of advice giv\u00aden to writ\u00aders is to envi\u00adsion your ide\u00adal read\u00ader and write your book to that per\u00adson. And although I did\u00adn\u2019t\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,19,21,7,8,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chris-orcutt-books","category-fiction","category-kindlestuff","category-personal","category-publishingandthemarket","category-writingexperiences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2939,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613\/revisions\/2939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}