Who Knew Page 99 Was So Important?
This week I’m busy with edits on my October release and work on the next book (the two main characters are telling me their story faster than I can write) so I thought I would do something a bit different with this week’s post. As part of the 2012 Orangeberry Summer Splash I was asked to perform a Page99Test. Essentially a page 99 test requires you to deconstruct page 99 of your book. It was an interesting exercise and one that made me anxious because I’d written “What Binds Us” as a whole, not bits and pieces to be nibbled randomly. You can find the results here. Let me know what you think.
You can learn more about the Page 99 test here.
You can learn more about the Page 99 test here.
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Debbie
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Jul 17, 2012 05:13PM
What an interesting premise! I hadn't heard of the Page 99 test either. In some respects, it does seem a reasonable litmus test, although as you suggest in relation to 'What Binds Us', it may prove to be a somewhat unrepresentative sample of the work as a whole. This, along with the potential spoilers, does lead me to wonder whether this approach does readers (or authors) any good.
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yes, Debbie I agree with you. I remain on the fence. I don't quite believe that one page can tell you anything about a book. That's one reason why when I was submitting to publishers I ruled out any who wanted a sample rather than the whole manuscript. And I did try to avoid spoilers as much as I could.But I should point out that I heard from one reader who said he appreciated learning what was in my mind when I wrote the scene.
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