Danielle Steel's Dark and Stormy Night

March 17, 2017 1:55 PM

"She started her first book off “It was a gloriously sunny day and the call from Carson Advertising came at nine-fifteen.” She’s never looked back. Nearly half her of introductions involve weather—mostly benign, positive weather (“perfect deliciously warm Saturday afternoons,” “perfect balmy May evening”, “absolutely perfect June day,” or simply: “The weather was magnificent.”)," from Danielle Steel Loves the Weather and Elmore Leonard Hates Exclamation Points: Literature by the Numbers, excerpts from Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve: And Other Experiments in Literature by Ben Blatt.
posted by palindromic (7 comments total)

I love that James Joyce uses the most exclamation points!
posted by Jode at 2:18 PM on March 17, 2017

It was a gloriously sunny day and the call from Carson Advertising came at nine-fifteen. And then the murders started.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:16 PM on March 17, 2017 [17 favorites]

I blurbed this! It's really a cut above the usual lazy chart-wrangling you might mistakenly expect.
posted by escabeche at 6:17 PM on March 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

I did an analysis of some famous novels using Elmore Leonard's rules on my blog a time back. Not nearly so comprehensive, but I'd like to think, decent reading.

Part One.
Part Two.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:33 AM on March 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

dances_with_sneetches, great posts! Was so glad you included Thomas Harris, as I suspected he would go pretty well with all those rules, since his style is quite simple and direct. His greatest sins being exclamation marks surprises me a little, but given his genre, I will forgive him for a handful of suddenlys.
posted by crossoverman at 3:33 AM on March 19, 2017

Thanks. I bought Blatt's book yesterday and if you are into statistical geekiness and literature, it is great.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:47 AM on March 19, 2017

Ben Blatt needs to start a service for authors where he custom-generates blurbs for new books. "More exclamation points than Dan Brown! The longest opening sentence since Midnight's Children! If you love a rate of Cliches Per 1000 Words that is precisely in line with industry average, this is the book for you!"
posted by yankeefog at 4:27 AM on March 20, 2017