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3. The Comfortable Photograph (aka “The Torso-twist-with-arm-resting-on-back-of-couch”)

It’s important to writers that readers understand they are just like them, and that they, too, enjoy the pleasures derived from sitting on a couch. Who wouldn’t trust someone who likes a good couch sitting now and then? This strategy may have worked in the 19th century, but modern readers are more than aware that an author’s ethical discernment and creative prowess have little to do with an author’s attitude toward a piece of furniture capable of accommodating three to four people.

Ann M. Martin

Garth Nix

John Grisham

J.K. Rowling

Marcel Proust