Last night, talking about the Harry Potter books at Omst's house.
Phillip: "What do you think makes the Harry Potter books so popular?"
"Lindsey": "They help me paint a mental picture. I can imagine their robes, quidditch, the hallways..."
Me: "The author is very good at authoritative details."
Phillip: "Do you think if a group of us got together and focused for a weekend, we could reverse engineer what makes a children's book captivating, and then write one that's just as good?"
Me: "No."
Omst: "I think by reading Harry Potter, you implicitly agree to terms that you will not try to reverse engineer the book."
Thursday, July 23, 2009
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4 comments:
You've heard of the video game initially known as 'Barry Hatter', right?
Also, books don't have anti-reverse-engineering clauses, or else David Eddings wouldn't have had a career.
Niniane,dear, remember T.S. Elliot's Dictum: mature artists steal.
Just don't make your book on Amazon.com's "Big Brother" Kindle ...
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