Comments on Nathan Bransford, Author: The One Question Writers Should Never Ask Themselv...

I completely agree. We cannot be so selfish and on...

2011-03-29T09:39:36.991-07:00

I completely agree. We cannot be so selfish and only think of our likes dislikes when reading a certain book. I believe we should try to envision the story through the authors perspective. Then we will see if he/she achieved what they had set out to do.

I'm glad you brought up Dan Brown, because The...

2010-12-05T18:51:57.013-08:00

I'm glad you brought up Dan Brown, because The DaVinci Code drove me nuts! I can't stand it when an authors ends a chapter with "And then, they jumped." It's a cheap trick. It's like playing sappy violin music in a movie to make people cry. Sure, it works, but it's the easy way out.

That said, I tore through the book, cover to cover in one trip. (I'm the world's slowest reader, so that's pretty impressive for me.) I found a lot in the book that I loved, and if I had put it down because his writing style bothered me, I would have missed out.

The best film class I ever took was one where we watched a series of "crappy movies." We would all pick some part of the movie to write about that we loved. I saw some films that were clearly not high art, but I found parts of them that I absolutely loved. Maybe it was the costumes. Maybe one shot was particularly beautiful. I watch bad movies with a whole new perspective now, and that's how I choose to read my books. Only a handful of things have ever made me pause and think "Well, that was a waste of my time."

I am not a reviewer, just a reader. I agree with t...

2010-08-05T12:14:48.339-07:00

I am not a reviewer, just a reader. I agree with the idea that a book is successful when it speaks to the reader.

Some books I like simply because they tell stories in which I enjoy engrossing myself. Some I like because they make me question things and wonder.

I don't have much patience with people who compare popular fictions with what they consider literary giants. It just looks pretentious to me and brings nothing to the discussions.

I'm overdue for a "Thumbs up, Nathan!&quo...

2010-08-02T11:23:52.144-07:00

I'm overdue for a "Thumbs up, Nathan!" Stumbled upon this blog some months back, and I've been consistently impressed (and educated) by the stream of publishing/writing/promoting insights. Grateful and hungry for more!

I'm struck by this observation: "Knowing your likes and dislikes will help you imitate, but it won't help you learn tools you can really use." Bingo. Life's short, and the lazy like/dislike metric is a an ongoing act of surrendering. Of giving up. Of missing opportunities. Sure, we all have a visceral need to evaluate whether or not a book (film, musical composition, poem, editorial, blog post, etc.) pleases us. But limiting ourselves to this level of interaction wastes free and vital learning. Again and again. There's plenty of potential learning even when we don't fancy a story, and yet we're content to apply the Facebook yardstick and stop there. Like. Dislike. Friend. Unfriend.

Also appreciated Nathan's comment, clearing up some reader's comments about equating good book sales with well written books: "I'm not saying that everything that's popular is "good" in terms of craft, but everything popular is good at something, and it's useful to try and figure out what that something is." And even if we're not willing to see any redeeming quality in the book, it must have been timely. Or scandalous. Or damned lucky!

Nathan's right, and it seems to me that people...

2010-08-02T06:57:12.778-07:00

Nathan's right, and it seems to me that people should ask not whether they like the book but whether the author is competent or not - are they a competent thriller writer, for example.

Yes, I am a believer in Kruger and Dunning's Unskilled and Unaware research and it seems to apply here - incompetent people (let's say those who haven't had a thriller published) can't recognise a competent one and rate themselves higher than the competent, published work.

The result - they feel bitter that a book that 'sucks' is published and theirs isn't without realising why it's been publish.

Great post! I loved this "The real question a...

2010-08-01T05:34:26.436-07:00

Great post! I loved this "The real question aspiring writers should ask is not whether they liked a book, but whether they think the author accomplished what they set out to accomplish." --

Amen.

2010-07-31T11:04:31.431-07:00

Amen.

2010-07-30T12:50:38.597-07:00

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

I'm not sure what your point is here - I think...

2010-07-30T12:42:03.476-07:00

I'm not sure what your point is here - I think many bestsellers are so because of the (lack of) sophistication of the reading masses. "Twilight" is an example brought up so often because A) it's wildly popular and B) It's categorically amateurish. Just because McDonald's is popular doesn't mean the food's good.

I complete agree.... wait.... what? You like The ...

2010-07-30T11:55:52.676-07:00

I complete agree.... wait.... what? You like The Bachelor?? Huh? I'm a chick and I don't like The Bachelor. Well. Um. Okay. ;)

POINT BEING! When people ask me, for instance, "Did you like the book 'Twilight'?" My answer is, "It isn't a favorite, and I'll never read it again. But I liked it for what it was." And to be honest, everyone who has asked has understood exactly what I was saying. I wish other people would do the same.

But may I just say, I think it is good to try books you don't think you will like. You might be surprised. As we get older, we change. Our interests change and quite possibly, our reading preferences change. Just as a thought......

"One should not read trash at the expense of ...

2010-07-30T11:34:57.830-07:00

"One should not read trash at the expense of a better book."

Sometimes it's fun to read something that doesn't make you think too much. :)

Even if I also spend time reading serious, good literature, after a long week when I feel like the world at large is heavy enough, I just want to be entertained. I think of books like those of Meyer and Brown as just like watching TV. I don't watch Gossip Girl for intellectual stimulation, I watch it for fun. Same goes for books like this. And these books are perfect for that.

And I'll say it again, no matter how bad you consider the writing of these people to be, they are better than most everyone else. Most people who criticize their writing could not do better, so it's fine to constructively criticize, but realize that compared to the majority of the population, this is NOT bad writing.

I agree....almost. When it comes to reading to de...

2010-07-30T10:23:35.154-07:00

I agree....almost. When it comes to reading to develop your craft, to learn from other writers, to grow and improve? By all means, yes. "Do I like it" doesn't enter the picture, "What works" does. But sometimes you're reading for enjoyment...and then giving yourself permission to quit a truly unpleasant book is something that I think many writers, as people who love words and admire the tenacity it took anyone to get published, find difficult. It took me a long time to learn to say "I am not enjoying this. I am choosing to read it. I can choose to put it down." Writers are readers, too--and sometimes are allowed to read for fun, just as they're allowed to write in journals or pen goofy letters to friends that have no direct correlation to their careers.

Just saw this a day late, after all the other comm...

2010-07-29T20:45:48.804-07:00

Just saw this a day late, after all the other comments were posted, and so I didn't read them. But I do have to say that when I read Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" as a teen (an English assignment, no less!) my heart pounded, I was sickened and sweaty and had to stop reading. I BSed my way through any reports and tests on the book. Even then I didn't say the book was terrible; I only wondered how someone could could write such tragic human scenarios. Now much older, I ask myself if the writing is effective, whether or not I like the subject material. Did the material evoke emotion or make me think or hold my attention to the next chapter? An effective writer writes compelling material. That doesn't mean I have to like it.

Twilight - At the urging of my teenage daughter, a...

2010-07-29T14:46:18.740-07:00

Twilight - At the urging of my teenage daughter, and to see what all the fuss was about, I read all four books. Did I like them? No. Did I think they in any way resembled literature? No. Were the books well-crafted? Did the author follow her own established rules in her own fantastical world? No. Did she market a concept that struck a chord, not only with teens and tweens, but with their mothers and grandmothers? Yes.
I view the Harry Potter series in the same, albeit somewhat better written, light. After the first couple books, I was bored to tears.
I won't even go into the never ending saga of Jamie and Claire after Outlander - and Diana Gabaldon can put together a nice sentence - unfortunately it's likely to be about hemorrhoids.
But...these authors and their books have their devoted fans and they are very successful. All I can say is, good for them. Those of us who write - whether we are good writers or marginal writers - wish we could experience the same kind of success.

I don’t think writers should say any book sucks or...

2010-07-29T14:38:59.346-07:00

I don’t think writers should say any book sucks or is trash or something else like that. If you are a writer or aspire to be one thinking like that is just not serious. You have to be able to be much more specific about how you are looking at material. You need to have a reason for why you think a book works or does not work, unless you don’t care about learning anything about writing.

Yes I do think you need to know if you like something or not, but you need to know much more than that. You need to know why you like something and that will tell you about the audience you want to approach and what you need to improve in your work.

You need to ask yourself why a book makes a lot of money – which translates into appeals to a large audience, whether you want to appeal to a large audience or not.

You have to learn to read like a writer not a reader. A reader gets lost in a successful book and is unaware of the technique. In a way a book that works puts the reader asleep. A writer needs to be awake while reading. A writer needs to be aware of how the book is affecting her while she is reading. That often means reading a book more than once. Particularly if the book works and “puts you to sleep”.

You have to be able to distinguish between what is effective writing and what you like. You have to understand what appeals to different audiences. And you have to understand what techniques work on most readers.

You have to get out of your own ego and your own head and examine the technique of the writing and judge that somewhat impartially. And technique is made up of many different skills; wordsmithing, character development, plotting, description, dialogue, pacing and others.

If you don’t know what makes a book work how can you write one? If you just want to enjoy and appreciate works you like, be a reader. If you want to be a writer you have to examine all kinds of books and be able to understand why they are or aren’t successful.

Overall, I agree with your assessment Nathan, and ...

2010-07-29T14:00:41.122-07:00

Overall, I agree with your assessment Nathan, and that it's important to read both good books and bad books in order to see not only what works, but what doesn't work.

However, I don't necessarily think sales are a good criteria for assessing what books suck and what books don't. I can't begin to count the number of books I've bought that I quit reading two chapters in because they were badly written. But even though I think those books were bad, statistically it still looks like I liked them, just because I bought them. In actuality, more than half of books never even get read all the way through after they're bought.

"It seems to me that people who say this really mean that Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer, etc are not the highbrow literary fiction that we are taught is "quality" writing. And no, they are not that. As Nathan pointed out, they are not trying to be that.

^ I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. This is absolutely not what I really mean when I say, "Twilight sucks." And for the sake of honesty, I'll just go ahead and say I've made that simplified assessment before, not because I think it's that simple to explain why a book so badly written can do so amazingly well in the commercial market (that's a pretty complex issue in and of itself) but because it would take me a dog's day to explain everything I find wrong with this book from an editorial standpoint. To say that I would have given it a pass as an editor is a massive understatement.

I think it's overly sensitive of enthusiastic fans of "bad" books like Twilight and Da Vinci Code to equate a scathing review of a novel with a scathing review of their literary tastes on the whole. All literary critique is pretty subjective, and you're bound to find wildly different opinions on the any given novel.

I don't expect literary genius when I pick up a pulp paperback off the rack. But I do expect protagonists that don't act like they walked out of a Mary Sue fanfiction, a plot that makes some semblance of sense as the story arc develops, et cetera, et cetera...

If I book doesn't have those basic things, I really don't have any qualms with saying that it sucks.

"One should not read trash at the expense of a better book."

Preach it brother. Call me a literary snob if you want, but I think it's really important to maintain a clear distinction between what is considered good writing and bad writing.

A six-figure advance does not a good book make, and as a writer, if you are more concerned with earning an advance like Meyer's than you are about telling the best possible story that you can, regardless of whether it sells or not, I feel pity for you.

Overall, I agree with your assessment Nathan, and ...

2010-07-29T14:00:19.568-07:00

i've already prepared myself for the fact that...

2010-07-29T12:46:03.241-07:00

i've already prepared myself for the fact that if i should ever get a book published, there are going to be people who dont like it and have bad things to say and that's OK because i have bad things to say about other peoples' books too. everybody has a right to what they like and dont like.

Reviewers who write "This book sucks" or...

2010-07-29T12:28:55.784-07:00

Reviewers who write "This book sucks" or the like aren't writers, even if they claim they are. They're certainly not reviewers and can be safely ignored.

I run a book review blog with three other people. Two of the reviewers aren't writers, and the other two (including me, of course) are. However, all four of us seem to read in roughly the same way. Basically, we look for what works in a book, and we look for what doesn't work. When we review, we point out what we've learned--but we also state whether we actually liked the book or not. Failing to do so would make for a bland, passive-voice, useless review.

In other words, the things you say writers should be doing while reading are the things all readers should do. And asking yourself if you like a book or not is actually a perfectly valid question, for writers and non-writers.

I'm 40 years old and my sense of what I like and dislike is still evolving. That's why I read widely and take chances with the kinds of books I buy.

Interesting article, but thank you, Stu Pitt. Yes,...

2010-07-29T11:36:01.659-07:00

Interesting article, but thank you, Stu Pitt. Yes, we should be judged according to our goals, but if the goal was to write best selling disposable trash, a reader can still label it trash. If the goal was loftier... and it's trash, well, that's sad.

And to another poster, your AP English teacher is SUPPOSED to be a literary snob.

We read what we like, and that might include Black Swan Green or Twilight, but if your high school English teachers do their job—and you do yours by learning—you recognizer the difference.

As a writer, we should be reading and studying the sort of books we wish we'd written. First, stop reading trash, the stuff you feel you are better than. Second read the stuff you aspire to and figure out how you'll do that.

What about when the book might actually suck? I&#...

2010-07-29T11:29:43.255-07:00

What about when the book might actually suck?

I'm saying this only because my mother and I got into a heated argument over the latest Evanovich book. They are light and fluffy in general, and certainly not going to be nominated for a Pulitzer any time soon, but we've enjoyed them.

The latest installment, however, felt like Evanovich was doing no more than going through the motions. I'd hazard a guess that sales are due to rabid fans who would buy the phone book if her name was on it, and fans like my mother and me who keep hoping the series will return to its original fun.

I'd hazard a guess that if that book as is was being shopped, it wouldn't have been picked up, or if it had been released with names changed under a penname, it wouldn't have sold. At this point, the name becomes bigger (and better than the writing). I think we've all seen it when authors have the clout to do submit pretty much anything, and Evanovich just jumped houses to the tune of a huge contract.

At some point, isn't it possible that a book really isn't great, and sells based on the laws of celebrity rather than anything about the book?

P.S. I've read Twilight, more than once. Writing? Not so hot. But she's an incredible storyteller.

OMG This article sucked! =) Just kidding. I actual...

2010-07-29T10:49:32.403-07:00

OMG This article sucked! =) Just kidding. I actually appreciate and sympathize how you feel. I recently had a reviewer state they wanted to see more of a love story between two characters in my book. The only problem was the book wasn't about those two characters and it's an action/sci-fi not a romance novel. I often just shake my head and move on but I feel your pain!

This is a bit off-topic, Nathan, but I am thinking...

2010-07-29T08:39:03.997-07:00

This is a bit off-topic, Nathan, but I am thinking it might be a good idea for a new blog. I have heard a lot of negative things about the Twilight series. I myself only read the first 80 pages or so of the first book, so I am not qualified to answer this question. My question is, So what DOES the Twilight series do well, from a writer's perspective? Any takers? If this is not the correct forum to explore this question, can someone please point me to a website that is?

While it seems kind of pointless to comment...what...

2010-07-29T08:27:54.097-07:00

While it seems kind of pointless to comment...what the heck!
You hit the nail on the head - has the writer set out to accomplish what he or she wanted to accomplish - that is the question.
The question is not - is this the next great American novel.
Thanks!

What a good article. I wonder if an author was rec...

2010-07-29T08:14:17.019-07:00

What a good article. I wonder if an author was recently slammed to provoke this discussion. I'd be interested in hearing about other's approaches in preparing a reader for what their novel is going to deliver. Outside of Prefaces or Prologues, if some use these, the back cover and inside flap blurbs usually describe the story. I've heard author interviews in which they explain what they had wanted to do in writing a novel, but it isn't always known just by looking at the novel and it's introduction. How do YOU try to preframe a reader for the novel their about to read?