[QUOTE=ZombWii;1294262]
Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Various very popular books have received quite interesting criticism here and in other places: "their writing is awful" or "can't write worth a darn" etc etc. Such comments are not offered in the personal opinion manner of: "I didn't like that" or "that didn't do it for me". Rather, they seem to be put forward as inarguable fact.
I would contend that a popular novel, by definition, cannot be considered to be badly written.
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I disagree.
Popularity is a completely different measure than the quality of writing; a popular book can be well written or it can be poorly written or anywhere in between. All it needs is for the book as a whole to appeal to a large number of people. It doesn't need to be well written or poorly written; in fact that metric is almost irrelevant as it's almost always factors other than the quality of the writing (good or bad) that cause a book to take off.
Neither good writing nor bad writing is an indicator of popularity. Popularity is almost always due to an idea or character in the book catching the public attention and taking off. The writing is just along for the ride.
A runaway bestseller is usually a book about something many people one wanted to read about, but most of them didn't know it.
That doesn't mean poor writing is simply a matter of opinion. Many people do conflate poor writing with writing they don't like, and in that case yes, it is a matter of opinion. However, that doesn't mean there isn't such a thing as objectively poor writing and that some bestselling authors aren't guilty of it.
Overuse of adverbs, poor control of POV, focusing on unnecessary details in description while ignoring important ones, shifting to indirect rather than direct discourse just at the emotional payoff of a scene - thereby weakening the entire piece; these are just a few examples of objectively poor writing, and most of them can be found in some popular books.
A book can be popular and well written, a book can be unpopular and well written, a book can be popular and poorly written, or unpopular and poorly written. However, what should matter most to the reader is whether you like the book your reading, popular or not, poorly written or not.