Can a popular novel be badly written?

[gmw]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Who is rejecting the taste of the masses?

So your earlier post that said: "The bigger question is why the mass audience is style and tone deaf, and finds them readable." was not a rejection of their opinion? It sure sounds like one to me.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

[...]It might be more valuable to examine why popular works commonly considered poorly written are popular. What itch do they scratch? What makes them popular, if it isn't the writing?

It is only your claim that it isn't the writing, not mine. Certainly there is a combination of factors going on here, but the writing is part of that combination. It is your prior claim that the mass audience is style and tone deaf that seems to be a total rejection of popularity.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by gmw

So your earlier post that said: "The bigger question is why the mass audience is style and tone deaf, and finds them readable." was not a rejection of their opinion? It sure sounds like one to me.

Yes and no. That same mass audience has made books popular that were well written, so it's not a blanket rejection of mass taste. It's a rejection for certain specific cases.

It is only your claim that it isn't the writing, not mine. Certainly there is a combination of factors going on here, but the writing is part of that combination. It is your prior claim that the mass audience is style and tone deaf that seems to be a total rejection of popularity.

It isn't. It's a question.

If we accept that a popular book can be badly written, we have to ask why it's popular despite that. I agree that a combination of factors are involved, and writing quality is only one of them. What are the others?

I'll part company with mass audience taste on a badly written book because I require a minimal level of writing quality to find a book readable at all. Obviously I'm not representative, because books I can't read may become very popular indeed.
______
Dennis

[gmw]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

[...]I'll part company with mass audience taste on a badly written book because I require a minimal level of writing quality to find a book readable at all. Obviously I'm not representative, because books I can't read may become very popular indeed.

So what you're saying is that the mass audience has good taste only when they agree with you.

This is not a dig, I think we all feel like that at times, but I think it truly highlights the point made to me earlier: people statement's of what is good taste (good writing) can only ever be their personal opinion, no matter how strongly stated. To me good writing is writing that reaches its audience; almost by definition, this means a popular book is well written whether I happen to like it or not.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by gmw

So what you're saying is that the mass audience has good taste only when they agree with you.

No, I'm saying my taste differs from the mass audience in many cases. Different does not automatically mean better.

In some cases, I may well think my taste is in fact better, but that's not a blanket statement, either. There are an awful lot of very popular books that are arguably well written that I am unlikely to read because the subject matter is not one that appeals to me. I'm simply not interested, and I'll cheerfully take the word of someone who is that they are good.

This is not a dig, I think we all feel like that at times, but I think it truly highlights the point made to me earlier: people statement's of what is good taste (good writing) can only ever be their personal opinion, no matter how strongly stated. To me good writing is writing that reaches its audience; almost by definition, this means a popular book is well written whether I happen to like it or not.

I see the point but can't agree. Let's put it this way: there are probably books that are very popular that you didn't like. By your definition, they reached their audience, and were therefore well written.

Why didn't you like them? Were they about things of interest to you? Assuming they were the sort of books you would read in the first place, what put you off about them?

Artistic judgments are always subjective. The best we can hope to do is define the criteria we are using when we render judgment.
______
Dennis

[gmw]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

[...] Artistic judgments are always subjective. The best we can hope to do is define the criteria we are using when we render judgment.

At least we can agree on the subjective bit ... but I am guessing we may need an independent arbiter to define the criteria

[RolandD]

Originally Posted by gmw

To me good writing is writing that reaches its audience; almost by definition, this means a popular book is well written whether I happen to like it or not.

Nicely put. Perhaps a decline in 'writing quality' in popular works, reflects a decline in literacy as a whole.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by RolandD

Nicely put. Perhaps a decline in 'writing quality' in popular works, reflects a decline in literacy as a whole.

I think that is true for the mass-market bestsellers, but I also think that we aren't as fussy/snobbish about writing quality anymore. This is true about many things besides writing, such as music, clothes, hairstyles,... People used to think that your aesthetic choices reflected your moral character, but not so much anymore, thankfully.

[JSWolf]

Yes, lousy books can be very popular. So popular in fact that the author goes on to make that lousy book into a series.

[Jaime_Astorga]

Yes. Otherwise "well written" is a synonym for "popular", and that doesn't seem like a very useful definition to me.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

Yes. Otherwise "well written" is a synonym for "popular", and that doesn't seem like a very useful definition to me.

But is it any worse than having "well written" being only a matter of personal opinion? At least popular has some means of independent measurement. If you happen to read my OP you will notice that my proposal was only that very popular meant not badly written, not that it was necessarily well written, it may have been merely adequate (not many people here seem to acknowledge that such a middle ground between good and bad can exist).

I would also like to re-emphasize what I indicated in my OP: that I was specifically referring to books popular in and of themselves - as opposed to popular for external reasons (like famous author or famous event), I don't want you to think that I am including every football player's memoirs in this .

[sportourer1]

Of course they can, just look at the huge number of franchise thrillers thrown together by ghost writers. Idiotic shallow characters hurtling through unbelievable and ill researched plots. There are hundreds of them out there

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by gmw

But is it any worse than having "well written" being only a matter of personal opinion? At least popular has some means of independent measurement.

For me, personal opinion is what counts, because I'm reading for my enjoyment, not others'. So yes, popular opinion is worse in that case; it's useless.

[Vivian]

Originally Posted by gmw

To me good writing is writing that reaches its audience; almost by definition, this means a popular book is well written whether I happen to like it or not.

I can't accept that. Of course if the book is popular, it's doing SOMETHING right. But it may also be doing a lot wrong. Those who embrace it don't care about the things it's doing wrong. Possibly they don't even notice. They're "tone deaf" as someone said earlier. Other people are so put off by that sour note that it drowns out the things the author is doing right.

A good writer is one who does most things right and only hits a few sour notes. A bad, popular writer is often doing one thing really well and everything else incredibly badly. Daniel Steel. Dan Brown. David Weber. And others whose names don't even begin with "D". Maeve Binchy. Ken Follet.

Often the only thing they're doing right is inducing you to keep turning pages. I think that may be the only trick you need to create a bestseller.

[fruiter]

Well - I think that there is no perfect book, so a popular book might very well have consistent flaws that are really noticeable. I've read incredibly long series that didn't make a lot of sense - but I continued reading them because I was really enthralled by one feature of theirs.

[Duiker]

Yes, just like Little Fockers can be number one at the box office.