When I get "hooked" by a book, I mean I've read the whole book and I'll read it again whenever I have time. For me, the "hook" of a published book is the whole book.

On the "stinker" side, I never assign a published book to the stinker pile without reading at least the first few pages. I'll often check out a few pages later in the book just to make sure that it isn't just the opening that stinks. And I prefer to be quite sure I know why the book was--no, not why it stank--published.

If I can see that the writer or story is clearly PC (by the standards of the publisher, at any rate), then the question is answered. I'll read a PC book if it's good, don't get me wrong. I just want to be satisfied that there was a clear reason that it got published. That way, I don't have to wonder if there was some really mindblowingly great part of the book that got it published (yes, I know that this doesn't really happen--editors don't read any more of the book than I do, after all).

For a published short story, the writer and publisher really have to enter a diabolical personal conspiracy against myself to keep me from reading the whole thing before casting judgement. I read food labels, and not because I'm concerned about my health either.

Line...I've read plenty of stories that I felt pretty indifferent towards...but I still usually read the whole thing, unless I happen to spot a well loved favorite and start reading that, thus forgeting all about the poor story I was reading. Usually, I'll remember the story and read it eventually. Sometimes such a story will end up being assigned to the stinker pile after fifty or a hundred pages, sometimes it will end up hooking me. But there are a lot of books in this world that I basically read once and never particularly feel like reading again.

So this forum is useless to someone like me, becauase I can't possibly say that a story is a hook or line without reading the whole thing, and I can't even say it's a stinker without getting at least several pages and a pretty good idea of the reasons it was published despite being utter garbage.

This being the case, why do I post so much on the Fragments and Feedback forum?

Because there, I'm just trying to decide whether it is worth my time and the author's pain to have me critique something. My time isn't so valuable, but I can inflict a lot of pain to no good if I agree to critique the wrong story, or even a story that is on the wrong revision. There are basically two kinds of things I'm looking for.

First, I'm looking for certain very basic things that can be spotted in the first few paragraphs of any writer's work. Is the author literate? Are there real words, formed into sentances, that make paragraphs? Does the author understand POV? The simplest POV is actually 3PL, sometimes called objective...I call it screenwriting POV, because that's what it is, that's all it is. And I don't critique screenplays...I might critique a storyboard, but I only have one useful critique for any screenplay, no matter how good, "get someone to turn this into a movie I can watch, and I'll tell you if I like it." I check to see that the author at least understands 3PLO, particularly how to introduce a POV. I check for outstanding implausibility markers and bedlam statements...things that have correct syntax, but simply make no sense. I check for offensive content. Does the writer drop the F-bomb twenty times in thirteen lines or exploit a horrible ethnic stereotype? Some things I don't check for...I don't check for interest. I don't check for idea. I don't check for the author's righteousness (either kind). I'm not going to get those out of the first 13...unless the author has really been hammered by the kind of critics that simply don't like to read at all.

Second, I'm looking for a little information about the author and story that helps be decide both how useful my critique might be and how painful it is likely to be. I like to know how long the story is, and how "finished" the author considers it. That's direct information, I just ask or let the author tell it up front. I like to see how the author responds to a couple of sample comments, both personally and "professionally" (meaning, do my comments cause a corresponding improvement in the prose?). I might ask about the ideas of the story, to see if I would be specially interested.

Naturally, there are several writers on the forum that I will happily offer to critique without seeing the first 13 lines of any given story, because all or most the questions I look to answer from the first 13 lines I've already had answered for that writer. There are other writers with whom I have enough familiarity to quickly get the answers to most of those questions for any story by scanning the first 13. And for almost any writer, whether introduced to this forum yet or not, I can get the answers to these questions with a bit of digging.

These various factors, taken altogether, help me to estimate the three essential factors. First, how much time is it going to take for me to critique the story? Second, how much pain will my critique cause? Third, about how helpful will my critique end up being to the author (not just to the story...though if my advice only helps the writer with one story, that still counts)?

Basically adding the first two together (or perhaps multiplying them...maybe adding the first to the cross product of both...look, it isn't really a mathmatical formula, just an estimate) and then subracting that from the third, I decide whether to ask for the story, turn it down, or tell the author to try me again later.

Sometimes I've done this sum wrong (it isn't really math, remember). I've critiqued a few writers that took my comments as violent personal attacks, others that simply couldn't implement or perhaps even understand a thing I said no matter how I explained it, and more than once I've found it nearly overwhelming to finish a critique. Usually, either the first or the third results in the second. If an author just decides everything I said was vicious ad hominem slander, then probably none of my advice will be understood or applied. When I just have to slog through a critique, not only do I have trouble making sense at the end but the writer probably isn't skilled enough to understand or apply what I say even if I'm lucid. And of course, the lack of applicability or comprehension of my comments can occur by itself...though it usually doesn't.

So why do I even bother trying? Because I don't always get it wrong, sometimes I really help a writer without causing too much pain to either of us. Maybe not all that often...I can't really know for sure. Because occasionally, I get to read a wonderful story before it gets published or even seen by an editor, and have a shot at being one of the first people to tell the author how great the story is. This doesn't happen often, but when it does I'm confident that it has happened.