{"id":96,"date":"2015-02-11T19:47:18","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T00:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zachbarnesonwriting.wordpress.com\/?p=96"},"modified":"2015-02-11T19:47:18","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T00:47:18","slug":"important-must-read-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/2015\/02\/11\/important-must-read-now\/","title":{"rendered":"!IMPORTANT! MUST READ NOW!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a social experiment. \u00a0Just a funny little test to see if those stupid blurb titles actually get people’s attention. \u00a0I promise not to be tricky again! \u00a0I’ll post my unofficial findings when they’re found, of course \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

It could have been titled: “27 reasons why you should mistrust ALL CAPS”<\/p>\n

What a funny way to abuse peoples’ lizard brains. \u00a0You know, that fundamental part of your brain that exults in the most basic things. \u00a0It’s why certain people are addicts. \u00a0Video games, drugs, money, you know, cool<\/em> stuff. \u00a0You see a flashing button and you immediately want to press it, or you at least wonder “what the hell?” \u00a0Stimuli (like this blog title) are used in books, too.<\/p>\n

The first thing that comes to mind is the vaunted ‘first page’. \u00a0Nowadays, first pages have to be pretty stimulating in order to compete with the sheer magnitude of, well, competition out there (i.e. every other book ever). \u00a0 And it makes sense. \u00a0Appeal to those lizard brains and get people sucked into your story. \u00a0Only then may you wax poetic…<\/em><\/p>\n

Secondly, there’s\u00a0the eternal conflict of literary-ness versus ease-of-read-ness. \u00a0They’re two selling points that come to mind quickly when picturing the market for authors. \u00a0Literary-ness sells because of our societal love of pretty words used well. \u00a0Ease-of-read-ness capitalizes not on the beauty of the sentence, but the flow of the sentence, in that it leads you to the next sentence after appropriately stimulating the lizard brain. \u00a0The page turning becomes addicting, elicits a positive response, that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

And now we live in a world where everyone is vying for your attention, we’re bombarded by stimuli, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a literary reaction to this. \u00a0Not that it would get anyone’s attention, it might just die in a corner somewhere.<\/p>\n

Anyway,\u00a0here’s the real question: what’s stimulating\u00a0to you? \u00a0Is it having a positive or negative effect on your life? \u00a0It’s okay to be stimulated, you just ought to know when it’s happening so that someone doesn’t trick you into doing something a lizard would do. \u00a0Without further ado, mountains (courtesy, as ever, of wallpaperswide.com, creative commons)<\/p>\n

\""Oooh,<\/a>
“Oooh, Ahhh”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m on facebook at:\u00a0https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/zachbarnesonwriting
\nAnd Twitter: @ZacharyBarnes4
\nLike or follow me if you enjoy\u00a0the blog!
\n\u2013
\nDon\u2019t steal\u00a0my words. \u00a0They\u2019re mine. \u00a9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And now we live in a world where everyone is vying for your attention, we’re bombarded by stimuli, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a literary reaction to this. Not that it would get anyone’s attention, it might just die in a corner somewhere. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amazonpipp_noncename":"","amazon-product-isactive":"","amazon-product-single-asin":"","amazon-product-content-location":"","amazon-product-content-hook-override":"","amazon-product-excerpt-hook-override":"","amazon-product-singular-only":"","amazon-product-amazon-desc":"","amazon-product-show-gallery":"","amazon-product-show-features":"","amazon-product-newwindow":"","amazon-product-show-list-price":"","amazon-product-show-used-price":"","amazon-product-show-saved-amt":"","amazon-product-timestamp":"","amazon-product-new-title":"","amazon-product-use-cartURL":"","amazon_featured_post_meta_key":"","_amazon_featured_alt":"","amazon-product-template":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[19,27,30,43,52],"tags":[65,98,111,113,123,159,182],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}