Next to Ulysses on the shelf of unread books. If the firstĬouple of minutes of a thousand-page novel are shit they reader is dumping it Long you have to get them hooked, and how much you can play later.

The overall length of the piece counts for how.

Because that bar across the street is mighty tempting. If there’s an interval give them a question that will only be answered if theyĬome back. But remember, risky and shit are not the same thing. Unusual structures, delayed hooks: try them out – the audience are

For theatre and film, you’ve got some time to.

Every second counts for the first five minutes.

Shrugged) What are our take homes from these differences? Which is the only reasonĪnybody ever finishes War and Peace (or, for the real masochist, Atlas They’ve already spent makes them want to finish. They have spent reading/watching, the harder it is for them to stop: the time Story: audiences are as subject to sunk costs as everyone else. There is a proviso to this, and it works for all forms of Every word counts when writing for these mediums. There’s nothing easier than putting down a book orįlicking the channel. Well, the risk that you might bore the audience.īy contrast, books and worst of all TV always have to grabĪudience attention.

Have a little more room to play, a little more opportunity to experiment with, Likely to walk out of a theatre until the interval. Pretty bad before they walk out and get on the metro. If someone has travelled to the cinema to watch a film, the film must be Not all stories are born equalĮvery minute of your work is in competition with literallyĮverything else your reader or viewer could be doing. Talk about how to think about your writing in terms of the readers use of time,Īnd points in your story where time is especially important. Or target word counts, when we’re trying to convince ourselves we can sell ourġ50,000-word teen thriller. We talk about word limits, when we have one,

Yet writers rarely think in terms of time. Every minute they give you must give them more than they’ll get from getting up and going somewhere else. Every minute could be spent on something else: their family, the washing up, playing computer games, or god-forbid another writer’s work. When someone watches your film or play, reads your book or short story, listens to your audio drama or podcast, they are making an investment of time.

Submissions word count tor books