There are thousands of people who find that shoddy prose gets in the way of
a good story -- me being one of them -- but there are clearly millions for
whom it's of no consequence. What's also interesting about Patterson's style
(shoddiness aside) is that it looks to me as if he writes (or perhaps it's
more accurate to say that he edits) for struggling readers without
explicitly saying so. In other words, if you have a reading age of only a
ten-year-old, you'll most likely get through a Patterson novel pretty
easily. And given the extraordinary number of adults who have very poor
literacy skills these days, that gives him a potential readership that most
crime writers don't have. That's just an observation, though. I've no
evidence to back that up. Although he does tick most of the boxes on the
'reluctant reader' checklist I was given by a publisher when I was
commissioned to write a novella for adults with a reading age of eight or
above.
Al
----- Original Message -----
From: "jacquesdebierue" <jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com>
> Thanks, this is an eye-opener for me... for some reason unrelated to
> his bestsellerdom, I've never felt tempted to pick up one of his
> books, which are everywhere (though I had no idea that he sold so much).
>
> Best,
>
> mrt
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