Can a popular novel be badly written?

[Joykins]

I review a lot of popular fiction (romances, generally, but also other genres from time to time) as a sort of a hobby, and I find the label "bad writing" to be horribly imprecise. There are many aspects to writing: plot, characterization, style (including usage, diction, even grammar and punctuation), pacing, use of humor and genre tropes, accuracy, etc. Most popular fiction doesn't pretend to be "literary" in the same sense that Umberto Eco is, so I think we can leave that kind of quality out of the discussion.

What I do find is that some popular bestsellers (I refer to authors like Robin Cook, Michael Crichton, and John Grisham because they were the biggies back when I read more bestsellers) usually nail *some* of the aspects of good writing but at the expense of another--like, riveting plots with cardboard characters or a pedestrian style. What most popular bestsellers have in common is that they are fast-paced, have interesting ideas and/or characters, and are easy to read. They may or may not do well in other areas.

Sometimes, though, something stinks enough that I can say it's bad writing and move on. Here is, I kid you not, an actual sentence from a romance by a "best-selling" (whatever that means; it's in her bio) author

"He was ready to f**k and defile, to sate and purge himself; to finesse, beguile, and abuse her in every conceivable fashion, and he didn't intend to be penitent for whatever he might perpetuate."

The whole book was like that, only in some places the diction was much worse. I had to call it "appalling" (the style actually jarred me out of the reading experience, as many words seemed used in a way a little "off" from their true meanings, almost as if the author was using random thesaurus synonyms for word selection) even though the plot was fast-paced and melodramatic enough, and the sex scenes hot enough to account for a number of sales, I suppose).

[Catlady]

This thread is confusing me. Some people seem to be thinking badly written = grammatical errors. When I think badly written, I think poor word choices, overuse of adverbs, literary flourishes, purple prose, repetitiveness, etc. I can overlook all this if an author gives me a great plot, suspenseful scenes, memorable characters, something intriguing to think about.

My example of a "bad" writer I will happily read is Cornell Woolrich.

[Joykins]

To me, "grammatical errors" means poor EDITING. Grammar and usage problems are things that editors should catch.

[HarryT]

A number of people have mentioned Stieg Larsson's "Millennium" trilogy. The situation there is complicated by the fact that most of us have probably read them in translation rather than reading the Swedish originals (I assume you read them in Swedish, Tommy?). Can we judge, if reading a translation, whether or not the originals were well or poorly written?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by NVash

Yes they can. Look at Twilight for a perfect example. Question is how do they become popular novels when they arent very good?

Because they hit the spot for their target market - teenage girls. There's very little connection between good writing and commercial success.

[MV64]

Lots of popular books are poorly written. Look at Stephen King, his stories are engaging and entertaining but his dialogue absolutely sucks.

It also reminds me of Harry Turtledove's Great War series. He's a terrible, terrible writer, but I enjoyed most of that series because of the situations and plots.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Because they hit the spot for their target market - teenage girls. There's very little connection between good writing and commercial success.

Twilight (just the first book) has (according to Wikipedia) sold more than 17 million copies to date. Its huge success (even before the movies) is, as far as I know, largely due to the fact that it became popular even outside its target "young adult" audience. I know for a certainty that it has been enjoyed by many who are not teenage girls - such an assertion severely underrates and understates the books popularity. (That is essentially the same as claiming the Harry Potter series only did so well because kids loved it.)

You say there is no connection between good writing and popularity ... but how can this be so? Isn't popularity a reasonable measure of how accessible readers find the book?

[GraceKrispy]

Originally Posted by gmw

You say there is no connection between good writing and popularity ... but how can this be so? Isn't popularity a reasonable measure of how accessible readers find the book?

I do think popularity is a mark of how accessible readers find the book, but readers are all looking for different things in books, and I would dare to say the majority of readers out there (not on this site, as the stats are biased here just by the nature of this site) are not looking for "quality/good" writing as necessarily the most important factor.

I read the Twilight books. I thought the writing was passable-- more like the writing I expect to see from good middle school writers-- but the story line was interesting enough to pull me in enough to enjoy them. I like Dan Brown's stuff because of the storyline (even with the liberties he may have taken with some). I review indie books in my spare (ha) time, and I do rate according to things like quality of writing, storyline, characterization, etc. I have read and enjoyed some popular fiction- for whatever reason- books that wouldn't earn very high ratings from me.

So I really do think popularity speaks more to accessibility and something in the book that touches upon something in the reader. And I do believe that the majority of readers aren't looking at the finer points of writing in the stories they read. They just want a fun escape that gives them fodder for the imagination, and even poorly written books can do that.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by gmw

Twilight (just the first book) has (according to Wikipedia) sold more than 17 million copies to date. Its huge success (even before the movies) is, as far as I know, largely due to the fact that it became popular even outside its target "young adult" audience. I know for a certainty that it has been enjoyed by many who are not teenage girls - such an assertion severely underrates and understates the books popularity. (That is essentially the same as claiming the Harry Potter series only did so well because kids loved it.)

You say there is no connection between good writing and popularity ... but how can this be so? Isn't popularity a reasonable measure of how accessible readers find the book?

Personally, I think the market for Twilight is exemplified but not limited to teenage girls. I think it's a wish-fulfillment fantasy that resonates best with readers who can identify with an awkward teenage girl who turns out to be possibly the single most important person in the world - even if she doesn't know it. It fulfills that need to be "special," and "important."

Also, I do think it's important to explain what I mean by poorly written. I'm not talking about grammatical errors; you're not likely to see many of those in anything from a major commercial publisher. I'm talking about things like overuse of the passive voice and indirect discourse, clunky sentences and too many modifiers. I'd list head-hopping there too, but I haven't been able to read enough of the books to know if it's there or not. (I tried to read them but gave up.)

[bhartman36]

I absolutely think that a popular novel can be badly written. Dan Brown's books are a good example. He can drive a story along fairly well, but on technical grounds, the books aren't good. And worse, the books are the <i>same</i>. With a few set changes, if you've read The Da Vinci Code, you've read all his books. And the female love interest is always fairly shallowly-drawn. Much of Brown's popularity comes from the controversy of the ideas in his books, rather than the writing.

Also, look how popular "trashy" romance novels are. Is Danielle Steel a great writer?

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

I absolutely think that a popular novel can be badly written. Dan Brown's books are a good example. He can drive a story along fairly well, but on technical grounds, the books aren't good. And worse, the books are the <i>same</i>. With a few set changes, if you've read The Da Vinci Code, you've read all his books. And the female love interest is always fairly shallowly-drawn. Much of Brown's popularity comes from the controversy of the ideas in his books, rather than the writing.

Also, look how popular "trashy" romance novels are. Is Danielle Steel a great writer?

I can't say that Danielle Steel is a great writer, but when you speak of "trashy" romance novels, the current leading writer is Nora Roberts, and most professionals consider her a very good writer. Genre is no bar to quality.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by gmw

I would contend that a popular novel, by definition, cannot be considered to be badly written.

Of course it can. There's a reason literary awards aren't automatically handed to whatever title sold the most copies: because popularity is influenced by several forces, only one of which is literary quality.

I'll grant that a book that's very popular can't be entirely without literary merit (and for those who think it can, wow, have I got some smashwords links for you!) but "not entirely lacking basic story structure, characterization, and grammar" is not the same as "not badly written."

Why? Because the purpose of writing is communication. If a novel is written well enough to reach and be enjoyed by many thousands of the intended audience, then describing such as badly written seems to be a contradiction in terms. The writing achieved its goal - in some cases much better than other apparently well written (and dare I say it, Literate) works.

It's only achieved "communication" if the message sent matches the one received. Selling ten million copies says that a whole lot of people got something from the book--it doesn't say they got the author's intended message.

This problem is shown, over and over, in author interviews where the author obviously believes she is writing fantastic, life-shattering literature that shakes the foundations of western culture, and discovers that her readers were enjoying a week's worth of snappy dialogue and descriptions of angsty skulkers in black trenchcoats (or robes, as the case may be).

Oh sure, marketing etc. all come into it. I am not trying to claim that the converse is necessarily true: that being popular makes the work well written, it may merely be adequate.

It can be worse than adequate. It can be badly-written, and have either a commercially-viable hook (was written by famous author, matches a currently trendy topic, is promoted by a celebrity) or a single bright point that outshines the overall poor quality--great dialogue, steamy sex, a fascinating plot twist, gruesome murders, etc.--and people buy & read it for access to that, while ignoring the fact that the rest of the book is just barely tolerable.

but if thousands upon thousands enjoyed reading the book, just who are you to judge the writing as bad? (Not liking something does not necessarily make it bad, merely bad for you.)

I have enjoyed books that were badly-written (although these days, my standards are higher than they used to be). "Literary quality" isn't the only thing that makes a book worth reading to me, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or that it can't be identified even if we don't have absolute measurements for it.

"Badly-written" doesn't mean "not worth reading." Badly-written can mean the plot is full of loopholes and contradictions and please don't even think about the timeline, but the dialogue is hilarious. Can mean the events and pacing are formulaic and predictable, but the sex scenes are so hot I don't care. Can mean the characters are wooden and the dialogue stilted and descriptions almost nonexistent, but there's a science-fiction/philosophy twist that made it worth slogging through 250 pages of pedantry.

I prefer it when all of the good parts are combined in the same book, but when they're not, I don't think that "I liked it anyway" means "it was well-written."

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

I can't say that Danielle Steel is a great writer, but when you speak of "trashy" romance novels, the current leading writer is Nora Roberts, and most professionals consider her a very good writer. Genre is no bar to quality.

I'm probably showing my age by citing Danielle Steel. My point was, these books aren't popular because of their good writing. They titillate the reader, but they don't necessarily have good plots, strong characters, strong use of language, etc.

It's a little bit like equating "good" (visual) porn with good photography.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A number of people have mentioned Stieg Larsson's "Millennium" trilogy. The situation there is complicated by the fact that most of us have probably read them in translation rather than reading the Swedish originals (I assume you read them in Swedish, Tommy?). Can we judge, if reading a translation, whether or not the originals were well or poorly written?

I thought that the language was good enough in the Swedish version. There was some debate among reviewers about this. But I would not say it is an example of bad language. The books could have been tighter edited but I really think that them being a bit to long was not a serious problem at all.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Joykins

I review a lot of popular fiction (romances, generally, but also other genres from time to time) as a sort of a hobby, and I find the label "bad writing" to be horribly imprecise. ...

Perhaps even badly written?

You are absolutely correct, seeing the responses here I can see that people have take "bad writing" to mean all sorts of things. I was trying to be all-inclusive. Not just grammar or plot or character but the end-result, how did the story reach the reader. I don't think it's practical to assess the quality of a novel or it's writing based on isolated criteria. The writer has to balance all the aspects to try and obtain a result. Some writers use lots of description, some almost none. Some have very complex plots, some almost none. Some go to great lengths to achieve realism, some leave lots of holes. The final result works for some readers and not for others - and (it seems to me) these latter tend to get offended and accuse the writer of poor writing.