mswietek

Jeanette Winterson falls into this category. "Art and Lies" has some awesome writing...great metaphors, surprising turns of phrase, but as you read on, it all appears to add up to nothing.

Michael

__________________
"Don't imagine that the art of poetry is any simpler than the art of music, or that you can please the expert before you have spent at least as much effort on the art of verse as an average piano teacher spends on the art of music." - Ezra Pound

Perad

if look at some of the best sellers, the da vinci code, harry potter, john grisham and tom clancy novels. All aren't brilliant bits of writing but its the story that gives them weight and its that which makes them sell. Everyone has there preferences and as long as your writing encompasses someones likings then it will be good writing in there opinion.

mammamaia

if that's aimed at me, ilyak, even though i've read voraciously for well over a half century, i've still had plenty of time to do plenty of other things, thank you... such as having/raising 7 kids; running my own writing consultant business; writing just about anything that takes words; doing pro bono work for sexually abused kids, the homeless, etc.; et al.; ad infinitum...

you got a problem with that?

fyi, being a 'best-seller' does not necessarily mean the sold-like-hotcakes book is an example of the best [or even half-way decent] writing... some are, many aren't...

__________________
For 100% free writing help/mentoring:
www.saysmom.com

"You must BE the change you wish to see in the world." Gandhi

Stewart

Not necessarily. Each book you read helps you decide whether an author is a good writer or not. I need only read one Dan Brown or Matthew Reilly to know that they are bad writers, or one China Mieville to know that he is an average writer who may come good eventually. That one book can determine whether you read more of that author. If I find that Stephen King is a bad writer, last one I read by him was Insomnia when it came out, then I can be assured that he won't ever be a good writer and can bypass his bestsellers. I've read Grisham; never again! Mieville, I may return to as I saw potential, although fantasy isn't a genre I would like to read. I saw Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner selling well so I read it and I know never to buy his books again, I will find out whether Elizabeth Kostova's is a good writer by reading The Historian. Likewise with Carlos Ruiz Zafon and his The Shadow of the Wind.

Why waste your time reading terrible writing if you can filter it out early and then enjoy the fruits of good writing?

__________________
book reviews | world lit forum

Anarkos

By what criteria do you pick the good writing from the bad?

__________________
My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

mammamaia

three major ones:

skillful use of words;

competence in re the technical aspects of writing;

ability to engage me, pull me into the writer's world...

__________________
For 100% free writing help/mentoring:
www.saysmom.com

"You must BE the change you wish to see in the world." Gandhi

Stewart

By experience. I can't say something is bad until I've read it.

__________________
book reviews | world lit forum

mswietek

It's all subjective, but here are a few things I look for...

Unique and fresh metaphors and similes. An absence of tired and overused phrases. Good rhythm in dialogue. Symbolism.

Michael

__________________
"Don't imagine that the art of poetry is any simpler than the art of music, or that you can please the expert before you have spent at least as much effort on the art of verse as an average piano teacher spends on the art of music." - Ezra Pound

suzakugaiden

"So, in their eyes, I suppose that I am a book snob but it's such an unoriginal tag that I turn my nose up at that too."

No, see, I actually agree with you. Grisham, Miltary Dude who makes Spy Games for XBox Now, Anne Rice... they DO suck. They AREN'T good. But two things:

A) Your post came off more as "I'm above low-art" then "Grisham is a retard."
B) Grisham et al fail not because they cannot write but because they suck at storytelling. WEll, they can't write either, of course, and fail because of that too, but it's... yeah?

"Perhaps King, Brown, et al, are good story-tellers but not good writers."

King, yes. Brown... maybe, but his underlying ideas are just so SILLY. I mean, love him or hate him, The Dark Tower at least has a neat idea. What was the Da Vinci Code? something about stealing antimatter from CERN to kill the vatican? W.T.F.M.8.?

" then I can be assured that he won't ever"

Okay, now this IS elitist. First, Insomnia is divisive anyway. On a more universal scale, saying that since ONE book is bad, that they'll never write anything of merit... that's just silly. That's even approaching the sort of sensationalist band of the year declarations NME makes every hour in its utter absurdity. I hated Beloved, but I've not entirely written off Morrison. If I applied that logic to music, then I would assume R.E.M. to be entirely irrelevant because I heard Up first. Ultimately, this is the same sort of, "I saw X first, so X will always be true" reasoning that have people reading nothing but Brown and Grisham assuming both are good because both are the first things they've read in general.

"Unique and fresh metaphors and similes. An absence of tired and overused phrases. Good rhythm in dialogue. Symbolism."

And that, ultimately's, just checklisting. Which isn't really useful for determining good anything.

Okay, kids. This is where I get into a lot of metababble and crap philosophy that I'm not really sure I understand, so bear with me.

The concepts of 'good' and 'bad' -- here, within the context of writing only -- are entirely subjective. They cannot be universal; there cannot be a single objective baseline for what is good and what is bad. Experience with writing -- understanding a broarder base of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and prose -- may give one some level of a baseline with which to judge by or some perception of objectivity, but it doesn't matter, because ultimately, this concept of good is still non-universal.

The idea that everyone has their own opinions is valid. The idea that every opinion is equally valid is valid. The idea that there is no wrong opinion is valid. Reality here is solipsistic. Rationalism fails in the assumption that man is rational.

Thus, on a universal scale, good and bad are simply not relevant. It also fails on a personal level. One cannot seperate the hyperbole from the fact; the sensationalism from the actual story. One cannot tell if something is good or if they merely fooling themself into thinking it's good to justify reading it. Internal baselines do not exist.

Thus good and bad are irrelevant on any scale.

Ultimately, I believe it simply comes down not to good or bad but to personal relevance.

mswietek

And you, ultimately, have missed the point. What I listed were several things I look for when thinking about whether a book is good or not. Just because it's in list form doesn't mean it's any less valid, and certainly does not imply a purely binary check off.

I don't think that anyone really thinks there is a single universal standard of what makes a good book and that all written works can thus be organized from Good to Bad in an objective way. Thus, the rest of this post is just a straw man argument.

I would amend this to say, that every opinion is equally valid to the person holding it. If I am interested in reading 15th century Russian poetry, the opinion of someone who has read lots of poetry of that type (and lots of poetry in general) is more valid (to me) than someone who has only read two poems of the type.

This strikes me as post modern silliness. If man is not rational then neither is your argument. Man can act irrationally at times, but that is a far different statement.

Again, this is a straw man. Not too many people outside of Plato believe there is an objective ordering of good to bad books.

These are just unsupported assertions. Give some evidence, please. Surely we can separate hyperbole from fact. There are books I like which are not generally known, and have no hyperbole surrounding them.

Trivially false. The works I have read up to this point, along with my current desires and taste make up my internal baseline. Just becuase it may change over time, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Isn't part of ersonal relavance determining whether or not you enjoyed the book (i.e. whether it was good or bad). But you said earlier that that fails on a personal level as well. Does it, or doesn't it?

Michael

__________________
"Don't imagine that the art of poetry is any simpler than the art of music, or that you can please the expert before you have spent at least as much effort on the art of verse as an average piano teacher spends on the art of music." - Ezra Pound

suzakugaiden

"Give some evidence, please."

Why? You've said it best yourself. It's not a very good argument.

Oracle

For smarter, more eager to learn students, sure. But many students don't give a flying crap about their education, so it's the teachers job to force a bit of literature into their brain. Required reading isn't about the development of interests. It's about determining whether or not a student is able analyze a text properly. If it's a text that all the teachers are familiar with, it gives them a better ability to accurately mark the student.

Anyways, back on topic, I think while people have preferences for subject matter and genre, it's easy for someone to tell good writing from bad writing regardless of whether it's their cup of tea or not.

I think good writing and a good story are two completely different things. A good story is all about good ideas-- originality, an interesting plot, etc. Good writing is about how well you can convey those ideas. You could write the stupidest story in the entire world but still write it well. On the other hand, you can have a great idea, but write it so poorly that nobody gives a care.

__________________
The bubble is round.

Anarkos

Righty. I challenged Connor to reply with a set of criteria for good writing. His reply was:

This effectively translates into "good writing is writing I think is good". Now, not only is that definition more than a little tautological, but it betrays something which I perceive as a clear weakness in Connor's position:

He is using subjective criteria to justify pronouncements of objective quality. It is his experience which (he believes) determines a book's value, rather than any observable element of the prose. It's not the object (the book) which determines its quality, by his argument, but the subject (the reader: Connor).

Now, this opens him up very nicely to accusations of elitism. He clearly believes that his own subjective analysis of a book's quality is superior to those of, say, Steven King fans. He is therefore implicitly saying that his judgment* is superior to theirs. Therefore he can be (fairly) accused of elitism.

[* Yes, no "e". There is an "e" in judge iff it is delivered in court by a judge. That was quite possibly the only thing I learned in my law school library course, aside from the location of the damn library.]

Of course, to be charitable, I'm sure that Connor, despite his inability to lay out objective criteria, believes that some part of book's merit is objective (that is, determined by the object not the subject). Perhaps he is saying that objective criteria exist, but it is through the experience of reading that one determines such criteria.

Now, others have, in reply to my question, outlined their own criteria. These can be summed up with a short list:

- Appropriate or elegant semantics and or syntax.
- Effective and original imagery.
- Emotive force.
- Solid characterisation.
- Effective plotting.
- (perhaps) Thematic power.

There may be more criteria, and not all such criteria are necessary for a book to be objectively good. Moreover, it is very difficult, as in Connor's case, to distinguish these objective elements from the subjective ones of taste. The emotive force of a book, for example, rests entirely on the book's ability to make the reader/subject respond with the author's desired emotion. This is an objective element; it is determined across all readers and is the result of something in the book not an individual reader. How an individual reader responds emotionally, however, is entirely subjective.

So, having waffled over and everyone else's criteria for "good" writing, I will attempt to outline my own.

The first thing I must do is distinguish between a good writer, and good storyteller and a good author.

A good writer is a technically profficient writer in whatever medium. He or she must use choose the appropriate words and sentence structures for whatever it is that they are writing, and must follow the traditionally proscribed format for said writing unless intentionally not doing so for some effect. The good writer may be an author, a poet, a speechwriter or anything else which involves putting pen to paper. (This is an objectively good writer. A subjectively good writer is, of course, one whose work I enjoy...)

A good storyteller must, quite simply, be able to craft a good story, with appropriate characters, conflicts and effective pacing. The plot must be well-structured and well thought out. They must also have some modicum of creativity; it takes no storytelling skill to copy the tale of another.

A good author must possess both these skills. They must be good both at the technical aspects of writing prose and at plotting. Moreover, they must be skilled in at least some of the associated skills used in prose (imagery, dialogue, characterisation etc) and must ideally write books with some notable thematic elements.

Of course, I don't exclusively read "good" books, but those are the criteria I use.

__________________
My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

Anarkos

I disagree. That is an inherantly subjective criteria. Different people enjoy different things. A book which I would loathe - Tom Clancy, for example, or the abortion that was Eragon - may be enjoyed hugely by another reader, such as yourself. The book isn't any better; it's just being read by a subject who enjoys it more.

Take Voltaire, for example. I am sure everyone here is familiar with his famous Candide. It is widely regarded as one of his best works, if not his best, and is justly famous. It's a brilliant work of satire. However, Zadig is my favourite work of Voltaire's. That does not make it a better book. Objectively, I can concede that it is probably worse. However, for various reasons, up to an including a friend surprisingly not committing suicide, I could identify absolutely with Zadig.

Another example comes in the discussions I've had here about the work of comedian Ben Elton. I enjoyed his books Stark and This Other Eden the most, despite their unconventional structures and workmanlike writing style. I can recognise that his plotting and writing skills have improved since, but still enjoy those books the most. The reason for this is subjective. It is to do with me, not the book: I am a greenie nutjob who therefore enjoys satire relating to our environment.

The reader's enjoyment of a book is influenced not just by the book itself, but by the characteristics of the reader.

Now, if the worth of a book was only subjective, there would be no point in labelling books good or bad. Good or bad would be entirely relevant to the reader, and there would be no way someone could criticise a book that was not based solely on personal taste.

Fortunately, this is not so. We can discuss the merits of literature with at least some pretence of objectivity, as books have certain characteristics, which I have outlined, which may be judged objectively with reference not to the reader but to the author, the book and how the former has penned the latter relative to set standards of literary merit.

__________________
My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

suzakugaiden

Why does it really matter what's good and what isn't? It's just reading/writing. It can't really HURT you.