Novels with a certain structure are more likely to be classics

Why do some novels captivate generations, while others hit the bestseller lists immediately upon publication and then fade away? The study suggests the answer may partly lie in the structure of their words and sentences.

Past research has examined the content that makes some books bestsellers. an affectionate male character is often a winning factorbut little is known about what contributes to the novel's continued popularity a century later.

To find out more, Leyao Wang from York University in Toronto, Canada, and her colleagues analyzed 300 English-language novels published between 1909 and 1923. Half of them were among the top ten bestsellers. Publishers Weeklytrade magazine which began in 1872, within a year of publication e.g. Happy youth William John Locke and Black bulls Gertrude Atherton.

But these novels are not among the top 10 reading lists of users past, present or future on Goodreads, which provides data on this based on the year the novel was published. The other half, for example Mysterious Case in Styles Agatha Christie and Anne of Avonlea Lucy Maud Montgomery remain popular on Goodreads today, whether they were bestsellers in their time or not.

The team prepared AI a model for distinguishing between the two categories, based on 70 percent of all novels selected. When the model scanned their full texts for any patterns in word usage, it found that those that were bestsellers were generally longer to begin with, but also used more colloquial words such as “yeah,” “oh,” and “OK.” These books also had more complex punctuation.

According to the researchers, these features can make novels relatively easy to read quickly, increasing their immediate appeal even if their content isn't strong enough to still excite readers today.

books which are still popular among modern readers, were shorter but contained longer sentences and more complex words. The researchers wondered if this meant they demanded more of our attention, which could make them more memorable, perhaps encouraging people to reread or recommend them.

When the AI ​​model was tested on the remaining 30 percent of the books, it classified them into two categories with an accuracy of about 70 percent.

“Although many other factors also likely contribute to timelessness—for example, themes, marketing choices, author reputation—we demonstrate that timelessness can be predicted without taking into account these more obvious non-textual influences,” the researchers say. Understanding the various factors that give a novel its enduring appeal “will be extremely helpful to publishers and authors alike.”

But Dorothy Hale from the University of California, Berkeley, says that a novel's influence must be studied for more than 100 years before it can truly be considered timeless, and that even the popularity of long-running classics changes over time. “Shakespeare may be considered by many to be the greatest timeless English writer, but the current trend in US colleges and universities is to remove the Shakespeare requirement from the English curriculum,” she says.

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