This story pops up from time to time. A computer algorithm can predict the commercial success of a novel.

That’s a bit of an overstatement. A stretch for simplification.

(Ironically, this is an article that could have been seventy-five percent shorter and still delivered the important payload. But okay. The writer had to turn in 14 column inches to earn her beer money.)

Because none of you actually clicked the link, here are the takeaways. Here are the variables that the computer algorithm found to be traits of successful novels.

Verbs describing thought processes are preferred to strong action verbs. (Curious.)

Use “said” in lieu of more dramatic dialog tags. (We knew this.)

Adjectives are preferred to adverbs. (We knew this.)

“Discourse connectives” are good. It means chaining two related sentences together with a simple conjunction is better than breaking a prose thought into two separate, staccato sentences. This one threw me. I’ve been trying to shorten my sentences into pizzicato string snaps for years. I’ve battled to get overlong, lumbering, paragraph-long sentences out of my writing. The algorithm says that fewer, more lengthy sentences are preferred.

Got that? I don’t think my explanation was very clear.

PREFERRED: “Clarence knew there would be a limit to her patience, but he had time to see the frustration clouding her face before he took things too far.”

NOT PREFERRED: “Clarence knew well that there was a limit to her patience. There would be a “warning shot” expression of frustration letting him know it was time to shut up.”

Mo’ prepositions are mo’ bettah. (Really?)

And here is the kicker. The gut punch. The room spinner. The most successful books have the highest grade level readability score, not the lowest. NOT THE LOWEST. Wow! It’s not really best to try to write for readers with a sixth grade vocabulary.

Hang on a second. One moment please. On the odd chance that this is even remotely not bullshit, I need to send out a quick communiqué to every one of the 60-or-so critique group members that I’ve had over the past twelve years.

Whew. That’s better.

I’ve blogged about this ad nauseum, but I’ll say it again. When I read or hear a word I don’t know, it excites me. I used to write the word down and look it up in a dictionary as soon as I could. Now I lift up my phone and say, “Siri! Define vermillion.” There’s no excuse for not learning new vocabulary in this day and age. It could not be easier.

I am baffled by the people who are too fucking lazy to google a word in this day and age. I am astounded by the people who actually get pissed off at me as a writer for having the gumption to use a word they are not familiar with. In my Critique Group Manifesto, I coined the phrase Vocabulary-Challenged Learning Nihilist. VCLN. These are people who would rather try to bully the writer into dumbing down the prose than make an effort to learn anything.

In Selfie, I used the acronym TGTFO. Any American kid under the age of 26 knows that TGTFO means “Tits, or Get the Fuck Out.” It’s a wolfpack peer pressure meme to exclude girls from imageboard discussions unless they post of picture of their bare breasts first.

Eight for eight. All eight adults who critiqued or proofread Selfie asked me, “What is TGTFO?” Not one of them took the nine seconds to google a five-letter search string. Eight adults spent more time ASKING ME WHAT IT MEANT than it would have taken them to find out for themselves. “Siri! What does Tee Gee Tee Eff Oh mean?”

Er… I was making a point. Oh yeah. The algorithm. If there’s a shred of truth to the allegory of the algorithm, it means I’m not the last person on the planet who values the precision of words. I’m not Chuck Heston cursing humanity from my knees in the surf. Yay me. Yay us. Validation at last! Where my peeps at?