It might be a while before I post another book review. I’ve just started Shogun, by James Clavell, a long epic that should take quite a long time to finish, and I’ve just agreed to help the Houston Writer’s Guild.
I was a judge for their Fall Novel Writing Contest, and I have been asked to be a judge again this year. I remember I was astounded by how poor many of the entries were last fall. It was quite easy to separate the wheat from the chaff. There was a lot of chaff. Conversely, those that stood out were truly spectacular. BUT, and this is key, I also remember that this exercise of judging, more than anything else, proved to me the importance of those first ten pages.
Last night I saw this illustrated again. I started reading Shogun, and the first ten pages, the prologue, were engrossing enough to want to make me read on. I also read three entries to the novel contest. Not one of them was intriguing enough in those first ten pages to make me want to read on. For the most part I found that many of the entries threw the reader too much information too fast. Two of the entries were sci-fi/fantasy and I was completely lost. Clavell on the other hand provided action without chaos, fluidity and form. So many of these aspiring novelists think that action equals intrigue and excitement, when if fact it really just adds confusion.
This year there is a judging criterion that awards points based on when the judge stopped reading. Stop reading on page 4, they get 4 points toward the maximum 150 point. Read all 10 pages and you get 10 points plus a bonus of 5 more. Last night I wasn’t able to read more than 5 pages of any of the entries. Based on last night’s experience, I fear it is going to be a long and depressing next few weeks.
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