By: Charles Bowen Steve Gordon is on our team -- he wants people to read more -- and he's using the Internet to do it. In the process, he has created some unusual Web tools that you could use in researching stories about books, movies, and even real-life experiences.
It all started with a service Gordon calls AllReaders.com and a unique search engine he created for it. Fiction, unlike nonfiction, is very difficult to classify, and "I started thinking about what people liked and disliked about books," Gordon notes in an online statement. "I realized that people didn't just like books -- they liked certain plots, certain kinds of characters, certain kinds and amounts of action and dialogue. If I could turn this idea into a database that could be accessed by a search engine, I would be doing the fiction readers and writers of the world a great service."
Enter "The Gordonator Precision Search Engine," an online location tool unlike any I've ever seen before. It allows you to search for subjects -- in novels -- by characteristics such as plot, character, and setting. Visit the site at
http://www.allreaders.com to see the search facility in action.
It starts by asking about broad categories of books -- sci-fi, romance, mystery/thriller, etc. -- then within those topics are different levels of questions, allowing readers to get closer and closer to books they want to read. These detailed questions -- more than 2,000 criteria are categorized -- cover things like the story's setting, the gender of its lead character, the level of violence, the use of certain plot devices. This in itself can be a fascinating exercise in databasing. In the Mysteries category, for instance, the site's search sub- categories include themes like "revenge" and "delusion," character traits like "eccentric" or "sensitive," even ways to die, like "poisoned," "shot," "impaled," or the always popular "stampeded."
When the search engine ultimately suggests a title, it also provides a list of other books that are "near misses" to the user's search criteria.
And now Steve has brought his unique search concept to other topics. AllWatchers.com, for example, is about films. The site enables you to employ the Gordonator to sort through movies by their characters and plots. Categories including science fiction and fantasy, comedy and personal dramas and action films. Most recently, Gordon has even broadened out into "Real Life Experiences," inviting his users to share stories about dating, travel, family, manners, pets, and the like.
By the way, if the name Steve Gordon sounds familiar to you, congratulations on your Web savvy. Gordon has been a Web fixture for some time. A Harvard Law graduate and a cyberspace traveler, Steve first created Allexperts.com (
http://allexperts.com), which he later sold to About.com.
Other considerations for using Allreaders.com and AllWatchers.com in your research and writing.
1. While the Gordonator searches the bright, shiny objects here, these sites also have quick links that let you bypass the search engine and go directly to material. Both sites, for instance, have links on the front to the latest reviews added to the databases. On AllReaders, you also can browse by author, selecting from an alphabetized list on the front. On AllWatchers, a linked, alphabetized list of movies is reachable on the front.
2. If you decide to write about these sites in your news columns, you might want to alert your readers to the general good-times nature of the resources. For instance, at this writing, Steve had just launched a project called "Eating New Yorkers," an interactive story in which participants play the part of a monster living in the bowels of New York. "The problem is," says the online premise, "you can't eat just ANY kind of New Yorker -- you need a balanced diet. The way you progress in the story is by figuring out what kinds of New Yorkers give you what kinds of vitamins and nutrients."
3. The sites also invite visitors to contribute their own reviews of movies and books by simply clicking the mouse and making selections from assorted menus.
To see Bowen's last 20 columns,
click here. Previous columns may be purchased in our
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