Portrait of James Patterson, a successful adman turned bestselling author. The former CEO of an international ad agency now writes one out of every 26 hardcover fiction books sold in the US. Hes the bestselling author in the world, beating pikers like JK Rowling. He works like a TV producer, turning out detailed 80-page outlines which a staff of two dozen turns into James Patterson novels. He writes longhand on yellow pads on a big sleigh bed. He has a note posted prominently to himself in his office: “How to Google: Press Safari icon at bottom of your iPad.”” > Patterson declared: “I know what I want in all my books. It’s my way or the highway. I know who my readers are and how to engage them, how to scare them, how to get people to feel for the characters, how to make my readers laugh.” > Bill Robinson, co-president at James Patterson Entertainment, the company dedicated to promoting Patterson’s efforts for film and television, recounted an exchange with his boss. “The other day we were discussing notes on a project, and I suggested something contrary to his impulse, and he said, ‘I’m sorry, Bill, did you recently write an international best-seller that I’m not aware of?’ ” > “Patterson’s formula is brutally simple. His books have lots of periods in the paragraphs, lots of paragraphs per page, and very few pages per chapter—as few as three or four. Each chapter begins with a quick reminder of people and events in the prior one (to refresh the memory of any sleepy reader who put the book down the night before), and most books end with a bonus “free preview” chapter of another book in Patterson’s voluminous oeuvre. > It is no insult to say that the prose is often bad, as in this example from Unlucky 13— the latest installment in Patterson’s “Women’s Murder Club” series, co-authored with Maxine Paetro—describing a terrorist who has hijacked a luxury cruise ship: “The sight of the man, the way he walked, his hardy-har attitude, and the random murders were so...
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 05:11:00 +0000
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