Our reading and book reviews.

Following on from Stephen King’s advice to us as new writers to read as much and as widely as possible we have since we started writing in 2010, read more than ten times as much as we have written. We have also submitted reviews to Amazon under the Alexander Kreator of Norfolk name. We think reading is as essential a component of authorship as the act of creative writing. Similar to a marriage of husband and wife working together to produce books, like children, with a background of co-operation, differences and disagreements.

Our reviews have helped consideration of each book both after starting and on completion. Some authors have taken exception to our initial reviews being given soon after the books have been started. As potential readers can now see and read starting chapters on Kindle and even in hard copy we believe the importance of getting a good reader attracting start to a book cannot be stressed too much. Most of our initial star ratings on Amazon tend to start low and then improve.

Our 2013 fiction book reviews have been based on the following factors.

1. Cover design rating out of 5.0. After studying cover design ever since we started writing in 2010 and being interested in the subject for life beforehand we have reached a view of what the Allrighters’ book covers will be. The essentials of a house style being as Ywnwab! with a double colour banding, a photo or picture spanning the whole front spine and back cover, title plus Allrighters text on front cover and on front and back covers text extracts from the book. We believe covers which give no clue as to the story or are not unusual often undersell a hard working writer’s efforts. To us your book must be stand out on Waterstones front table from the pretty cover norms.
2. Ingredients and volume and whether well mixed and then well cooked. We have read several books with excellent ingredients let down by poor mixing and cooking. Many books we read have been far too long.
3. Characters. We have probably been a little soft in this area and will harden up in 2014. In discussions with other readers and writers many have put reading about interesting characters at the top of their criteria for judging a book.
4. Flow and speed. The Allrighters’ have a preference for books which flow well and at a reasonable rate of knots. Why books flow well is still being examined and we think this represents one of the keys to improving our own writing.
5. Grip on the reader. Some writers grab hold of their readers and get them turning the pages. Finding these secret keys is crucial to improving our own writing.
6. Surprises. A few of these create memorable books.
7. Depth of reading from 24 hour, cannot put down easy reads, to the other extreme of books which are written so densely a page or a few pages a day are all that can be absorbed. We like both and those in between.
8. Ending. We do like a satisfactory and realistic ending to the books we read. The cop out of they all lived happily ever after scores nil! We have in mind writing more alternative endings ourselves to many books we have read. This has been great fun so far. Copyright issues to be considered on any publication.
9. Interest, education, enjoyment and above all memories of the whole, part or particular scenes in books we have read. Many books read years ago still drift back in the memory. (Await details in a future post about lifetime good reads and why.)
10. Would we read again? Along with memories another acid test. For two main reasons. The book is worth reading again to repeat the good experience or enjoyment or we often believe the content has more to reveal knowing the end.

The Allrighters. 

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