A funny thing happened on the way past a bookshelf ...

I know, I know. I was supposed to be repairing that part of my brain that can't switch off and enjoy good fiction anymore. I've started Michelle De Kretser's book. It's great and I will get back to it. But a funny thing happened on the way past a bookshelf ...I'm staying on Scotland Island in Pittwater, north of Sydney. While walking past one of my host's many bookshelves, a single title caught my eye. I say caught. I mean: the title made my eyes pop out. I couldn't believe my proverbial ocular organs. It was a book called The First 50 Pages, by Jeff Gerke. I knew it was meant for me. Yes, said my host, I picked it up for you at the jetty (the island's informal lending library, clothes swap and broken toy recycling depot).I spent the next 24 hours devouring this book about how to refine your book submission and your novel's first chapters. Did my first 50 pages do what it should? Ye Gods, no! Did I have a smokin' first line? Er, not really. Was my hero cleverly drawn and the conflict that defines him articulated in the first page. Well, kind of. Maybe not. Um, help!Were my nerves frayed? Yes. Was I demented with confusion? You bet.Oh poor, poor hefty fiction title, Questions of Travel. I have lugged you all this way, only to cast you aside for a quick and dirty thrill. But have I learned anything useful from my infidelity? Well, yes. Gerke's book is frank, funny and clever, in its way. It has simple ideas. It's convinced me that literary writers can learn from their commercial and genre fiction colleagues by better understanding what a reader needs to know at a given moment in a story. It made me think about the contract of reading, which is something like this:I, the writer, invite you to come on a journey. You, the reader, ask: what's in it for me? I scratch my enormously brainy head and say things like: you'll enjoy the pleasure of entering a different world. You'll get to know people I love and want you to meet. You'll suffer as they do, and maybe feel some things about your own life along the way. You might start to think about the themes that preoccupy me — I hope so. You say: ok, I'll give it a red hot go.So whom am I to let you down? I know that I'm an impatient reader these days. I want to be engaged, moved, titillated — and fast. What do I do if I feel the writer hasn't honoured the compact we made when I picked up the book? I quit.So: will I go back to my draft with these new questions in mind? Yes, of course. How can I not?Tell me what you think about how literary writers can best anticipate a reader's needs; or better still, tell me if you think they shouldn't.