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What is a "Good" Book?

17K views 191 replies 47 participants last post by  gilesxbecker 
#1 ·
The oft-touted piece of advice for selling lots of books is to "write a good book" but that advice can be so subjective and rather vague as to be almost useless.

For what is a "good" book?

Sometimes the answer is that it's not necessarily a well-written book but one that tells a "good story" which is another bit of advice that can trap us in the same near meaningless loop once more since that too can be subjective and vague.

What is a "good" story?

It's often suggested to read the topselling books in your genre to get an idea of reader expectations. I sometimes find this counterproductive. There are some books that rank highly, maintain that rank (or close to it) over time, and have decent numbers of positive reviews that I have purchased in order to study them and better understand reader expectations only to come to the conclusion that readers must expect to find mediocre writing, to notice an apparent lack of a hook to pull the reader into the story and to be bored out of their freaking minds before reaching chapter two.

Yet those books sell and continue to sell in spite of the fact that they are so, so boring or even just plain awful.

So I am left to wonder if it's just me. Are those books not bad? Am I too easily bored? Have I become too picky to read modern books?

To me, a good book should draw you into the story. You can see it playing out in your head as you read along. Each page compels you to turn to the next. Each chapter becomes the second to last chapter you want to read before putting the book down. Eat? Just one more chapter first! Drink? You can refill your glass later. Mother Nature's calling? Well, there is that empty glass . . . The bottom line is that you cannot put the book down.

That's a good book. That's the kind of book you want to emulate.

There is often debate over show vs. tell but I wonder if the real debate should be over push vs. pull. Perhaps we need to ask of each paragraph we write if it is compelling the reader to keep going or giving them an out to put the book down. It's not whether you are showing or telling but whether each line of your story is pulling the reader in or pushing them away.

What do you think makes for a "good" book? What specific advice would you give to a first time writer who wants to write a "good" book? Is it too subjective to define or are there specific and universal elements that make up a "good" book? How can you pull the reader in rather than push them away?
 
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#77 ·
TobiasRoote said:
There's a massive industry out there feeding off the writers obsession with writing bestsellers, but guess what. Those bestsellers are only successful because the writer wrote their own book. I wrote a bestseller, I haven't got a clue how I did it, or what I did right or wrong. I've tried to analyse it, but it comes down to one thing. The book was interesting.

It was badly written (it was my first book) it wasn't edited (it was written and published in 30 days) It was full of mistakes (some funny, others not so) and it sold thousands. I never read a book or a post anywhere about how to write a book. I just did it. I wish I could keep on doing it, but since then I've been through the mill with editors, proofreaders, critics, beta readers, soul searching, blog reading, articles on 'how to', and endless posts on KBoards. Now, my writing is much better, my back story is good, my pace is great, my characters are likeable and the plots are exciting. The SF is innovative and original and the books don't sell as well. Go figure.
If you keep digging a plant up to see how the roots are doing you will eventually kill it ;)
 
#78 ·
TobiasRoote said:
Yes, people are on here every day trying to find out HOW they can write a bestseller, HOW they can 'Game' the system into writing a bestseller. It's sad.

Those that are saying ' just write more interesting books' are being ignored, or put on the back shelf because - it's either too hard, or not interesting enough to do it the' right' way.

There's a massive industry out there feeding off the writers obsession with writing bestsellers, but guess what. Those bestsellers are only successful because the writer wrote their own book. I wrote a bestseller, I haven't got a clue how I did it, or what I did right or wrong. I've tried to analyse it, but it comes down to one thing. The book was interesting.

It was badly written (it was my first book) it wasn't edited (it was written and published in 30 days) It was full of mistakes (some funny, others not so) and it sold thousands. I never read a book or a post anywhere about how to write a book. I just did it. I wish I could keep on doing it, but since then I've been through the mill with editors, proofreaders, critics, beta readers, soul searching, blog reading, articles on 'how to', and endless posts on KBoards. Now, my writing is much better, my back story is good, my pace is great, my characters are likeable and the plots are exciting. The SF is innovative and original and the books don't sell as well. Go figure.

Sometimes, I look back and think 'maybe, I should just write like I did on the first book. Not giving a sh&t about the structure, prose or the technical aspects. A real 'seat-of-the-pants' book that just writes itself without any thought about being a bestseller or even a 'good' book. Maybe I will, tomorrow. :D
Yeah, I kinda feel you there. My first two series in romance were the only ones that really sold well, and I didn't know what the hell I was doing with either of them. Seriously. Then I wrote my third series, and I didn't do much analysis of bestsellers for that one, either, and it tanked. So, I figured I should do some market research. Did that, wrote my fourth series, consciously trying to "imitate" bestsellers, and it tanked, too. I came to realize that there's no "imitating" bestsellers - your book either has that "it" factor or it doesn't. I guess my first two series had the "it" factor, at least a little of the "it" factor, and the other three didn't. Why the other three didn't, I have no clue. There just wasn't the resonance that the first two series had.

That said, I don't think that market research is "gaming the system." It's smart to do that. The problem becomes how do you do that without becoming derivative? If you consciously try to imitate, your book will just be a pale imitation of x,y and z. But if you write something without knowing the tropes, you get into trouble there, too. For instance, I think that, with my third series, the first one that "failed," I do think that I got into trouble because I wrote a beta male paired with an alpha female. I knew that the tropes were the opposite of that, but I wanted to be "different," and, well, that cost me. I think.

Then again, who knows?

I read some bestsellers and find myself wanting to throw the book across the room (For me, FSOG was like that. Just.no. But, a lot of people love it, obviously). I just can't figure out the appeal. Others, such as "The Da Vinci Code," people want to criticize that one, but I loved it. I guess a lot of people think that that book is crap, but the puzzles and the history and all of that, combined with the insane pace - loved it. I didn't much care that it was crappy writing. In fact, I never thought that the writing was crap, because I was so into the story.

"Twilight" is the other one that gets criticized, and, for me, it was somewhere between FSOG, which I hated with the passion of a thousand suns, and "The Da Vinci Code." I liked "Twilight," read all the books in the series, but it took me awhile to get through the first book. That said, I read all the books, so I must have liked them, but they didn't really stay with me that much. I think that I could read "Twilight" again, today, and it would be like reading it for the first time, because it wasn't memorable for me the first time. But I didn't hate it. I did like it enough to continue. So...yeah.
 
#79 ·
TobiasRoote said:
The thing about marketing is, it's all about getting and keeping an 'edge'. If one person does it, it works, they tell another, it works. They tell twenty people, it works (some of the time). The one's it works for tell a hundred people, it works for a few. Then it no longer works.

Marketing isn't a science, nor is it a mass-market 'thingie' - it's about being different and standing out. If you're reading about a marketing technique here on KBoards, so are twenty thousand others. Guess what's going to happen. It's suddenly going to stop working so well (or, at all) because the effect is over-used.

When I launched my book I used 20 Facebook groups directed towards new releases, mainly SF. That was all. It must have worked. I've tried it countless times since - Nada.

If you have a technique and it's working for you - don't shout about it on here. :D
this is a competitive, zero-sum approach to marketing that I don't agree with at all.
 
#80 ·
Dolphin said:
That's where I think you have to read the reviews and try to pluck out what's working for the readers who do enjoy it. It's a challenge, but I guarantee that those writers are doing something well.
Even doing that, even knowing what readers are enjoying, doesn't necessarily help. For example, I looked at reviews of my bestselling book (which is not a bestseller, only my bestseller) to see what readers enjoyed about it and also studied critical comments as to what they didn't enjoy. I incorporated what I had learned into writing another book, trying to focus on what readers enjoyed and fix or eliminate the things that they didn't. I apparently failed because the resulting book is in strong competition to become my worst seller.

And . . . My bestselling book outsells my better written, planned and plotted book with characters that actually experience some degree of growth from the beginning to the end.

Granted, even knowing what readers want and buy isn't going to guarantee you can replicate it, but one would hope that knowing and incorporating that knowledge into your books would, at the very least, increase sales for those books as compared to other books where you didn't do that.
 
#82 ·
Dan C. Rinnert said:
Even doing that, even knowing what readers are enjoying, doesn't necessarily help. For example, I looked at reviews of my bestselling book (which is not a bestseller, only my bestseller) to see what readers enjoyed about it and also studied critical comments as to what they didn't enjoy. I incorporated what I had learned into writing another book, trying to focus on what readers enjoyed and fix or eliminate the things that they didn't. I apparently failed because the resulting book is in strong competition to become my worst seller.
Oh, I meant reading reviews for "good" books by other people. I don't think studying your own reviews is nearly as likely to be helpful--especially if you haven't yet found the audience you're after.

Either way, it's a tricky thing to do. You're not necessarily reading for explicit comments from readers so much as trying to infer what actually bothered them, subconsciously. It's hard. It's also just one step, one tool, of many. I can't begin to speculate whether that feedback you incorporated is what caused your book to founder.

I don't know if I should be, but I'm flabbergasted by the broad pushback against any kind of systematization of writing a "good" book. Whether it's because you think it's a vain hope, or something that shouldn't be attempted even if it's possible, I don't see how you can work in this field under that system of belief. Writing out of passion, sure. Everybody's entitled to do that. To me, though, professionalism requires process. You might as well be buying lottery tickets if you don't believe success is replicable.
 
#84 ·
Dolphin said:
You might as well be buying lottery tickets if you don't believe success is replicable.
This.

I have read so many success stories of authors who read a bunch of bestsellers in their chosen sub-genre, studied them and then wrote something similar. Then there are new authors who wrote the book in their heart and had success. Both authors did the same thing, they wrote a book that readers enjoyed reading. To me it's all about engaging and entertaining people.

There are all sorts of different reasons why an individual would say 'that's a good book'. When a bunch of people are all saying the same thing, then I think it's worth paying attention.

I remember being fascinated by Jasinda Wilders story of how they studied the top selling books in their genre and sat and wrote a bunch of books. They got themselves out of a serious financial situation.

Looking at reviews for books similar to yours, paying attention to what the readers are saying that they like and interacting with your readers. There are authors doing all that and finding their own success. They keep giving readers what they want.

I honestly think some authors find it a little difficult to stand back and look at the good and bad feedback in a positive way. Like P.J. Post just said, some 1 star reviews can be very interesting to read. Some contain golden nuggets about what is not working and what could be improved. Look at the discussions in the comments section and you will see some good points raised.

Don't read the 1 star reviews for your book if it's going to offend you and halt your writing. Read some critical reviews of authors in your sub-genre. There are three or four top reviewers on Goodreads who read romance and I agree with many of their 1 star reviews.
 
#86 ·
The danger of relying on reviews for useful feedback is that only a very small fraction of readers bother to write a review and you have no idea if this a representative sample.

But I do think that writers, over time, can learn to objectively assess their work and know whether it is 'good' or not.
 
#87 ·
SteveHarrison said:
The danger of relying on reviews for useful feedback is that only a very small fraction of readers bother to write a review and you have no idea if this a representative sample.
True, you have no idea if it's a representative sample. But if you get several reviews in a row saying that your characterization needs work or your plots are muddled, then that's probably something to take a second look at.
 
#88 ·
Perry Constantine said:
True, you have no idea if it's a representative sample. But if you get several reviews in a row saying that your characterization needs work or your plots are muddled, then that's probably something to take a second look at.
Good point, but glad I have yet to experience that particular feedback :)
 
#90 ·
Perry Constantine said:
True, you have no idea if it's a representative sample. But if you get several reviews in a row saying that your characterization needs work or your plots are muddled, then that's probably something to take a second look at.
Thing is, most 'average' readers (i.e., those who aren't writers) don't always go into characterization or muddle plots or anything specific like that. They may say "I don't like the FMC's friend," or "the coffee-shop story didn't make sense." They generally mention characters and storylines in general, and not really in enough detail that the writer can learn something from it. (When I write a review, I do try to be specific, and not just say "I didn't like it' or "I loved this story.")
 
#93 ·
Captain Cranky said:
I don't want to derail the thread or get into a debate on 'natural talent' (so I'll try to brief), but I can't help thinking that part of any 'pushback on systematisation' may be down to some people having internalised the process of building and utilising certain skill-sets, and therefore don't know how they do something, they just do.

Stephen King is probably a famous example of this. When you're devouring books and writing at a young age, or anything else which later in life can be transferred over to the business of writing, you're likely to be unconsciously internalising processes like structure, plotting, pacing etc. Later in life it is easy to attribute that as 'just write a good book' because doing so has become something that feels intuitive to that person. So they 'write what they feel.'

I liken it to driving a car in some ways. When I first started driving, I was conscious of everything. Check my mirrors, seat belt, start the ignition, put the car into gear, release the handbrake etc. But after a long time of doing it, I rarely even think about it anymore. The process feels intuitive to me. I instinctively know how much pressure to apply to the brakes and accelerator, how to turn the wheel in just the right way to go in the direction I want, when I can take a risk pulling into heavy/fast moving traffic and knowing how quickly my car can accelerate to catch up with the flow and not get in the way. Because I had a structure for learning how to drive, and I've internalised the process, I now get to enjoy the scenery and drive wherever I feel like it.

Some people have internalised the process of knowing when to accelerate or slow something down in their book, how to steer things to go in the direction they want early on. Some haven't, and find it useful to dissect bestsellers, so they can find a process for themselves. Some of us like to 'feel' our way through things, others like to analyse. I imagine a lot of us fall somewhere in between-we have already acquired some skill-sets, and need to break down others to learn them.

I don't know that there's any right or wrong way to learn to write a 'good book' or a book that sells, only that we should do it in whatever way makes sense to us. If it works, great. If not, back to the drawing board, try a different process.
This is a really good point. When I first got serious about studying story structure, I'd then go back and look at a lot of the things I'd written and find out that unconsciously, I had already applied that structure. And it came from a lifetime of consuming movies, where structure is very important, in addition to books, comics, etc.

I think it is good for writers to study structure, though, so they can have the vocabulary to explain why a story works or doesn't. It helps immensely when plotting out stories and at least I've found that it helps speed up the process.

Jena H said:
Thing is, most 'average' readers (i.e., those who aren't writers) don't always go into characterization or muddle plots or anything specific like that. They may say "I don't like the FMC's friend," or "the coffee-shop story didn't make sense." They generally mention characters and storylines in general, and not really in enough detail that the writer can learn something from it. (When I write a review, I do try to be specific, and not just say "I didn't like it' or "I loved this story.")
Yes, you're right, not all reviewers will go into depth. But if you see recurring things criticized in several reviews, then it's something to take a look at.
 
#94 ·
Perry Constantine said:
Yes, you're right, not all reviewers will go into depth. But if you see recurring things criticized in several reviews, then it's something to take a look at.
Exactly.

Dpock said:
I wish I had more faith in Amazon reviews. In some genres they seem totally gamed. Titles with a 100 five-star reviews on the day of publication (and not ARCs, which is another subject)? And they say the same thing? Something stinks there.
Yeah but that is a different subject that has been discussed on here and other forums. If you use Amazon a lot you will see this on reviews for books and sometimes for seller reviews. I noticed it on Fiverr too. The same review copied and pasted.

That's where you have to use your own common sense and look a little further. This guy on a forum linked to his new ebook and all the reviews were the same 'Great book, this is a stand up guy' and when I looked through the reviewers, they were all new members. He was told that the reviews looked fake and he was damaging his writing career by doing that.

I am talking about reviews for books in your sub-genre that are selling well. The reviews are spread over a few days, weeks, months. Some from book bloggers and top Amazon or Goodreads members. Reviews which explain what that reviewer liked and did not like. if you spend a lot of time on Goodreads, you will see short story length reviews from top reviewers and then dozens of comments from other reviewers. Some of those discussions reveal a lot about what worked and what didn't work.
I've seen some indepth analysis of books and things pointed out that I missed when I was reading the book.
 
#95 ·
Perry Constantine said:
True, you have no idea if it's a representative sample. But if you get several reviews in a row saying that your characterization needs work or your plots are muddled, then that's probably something to take a second look at.
If one person tells tells you that you're drunk you can consider it that person's opinion.
If two people tell you that you're drunk you should think about it.
if three people tell you that you're drunk you should go and lie down. ;)
 
#96 ·
One of the things that a good book should do is immediately establish the values at stake. I bring this up because I just looked at Game of Thrones, and GRRM has used the word "dead" nine times in the first seven paragraphs of the prologue. Then Chapter 1 begins with Ned Stark beheading a man.

How's Pride and Prejudice begin? "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

The Da Vinci Code starts with a mysterious albino assassin in a museum.

After saying "Call me Ishmael," the narrator of Moby Dick tells us how he always knows it's time to go back to sea when he finds himself lingering around coffins and funeral processions.

Mark Dawson starts The Cleaner with Milton caught up in a crunchy sniper field problem--we know who he means when he ends his first paragraph on a sign warning of hunters in the area.

Orwell only leaves us hanging till the end of the second paragraph of 1984 before his first "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU."

From the first paragraph of Along Came a Spider: "Shreds of misty fog touched the boy as he moved closer and closer to his first moment of real glory, his first kill."

Wool starts with Holston climbing, step after worn and rusted step, to the hatch.

Dr. Seuss tells us the Grinch hates Christmas and has a heart two sizes too small on the first page.

It's a small thing, but easily forgotten: start by telling your reader what the book is about. There's so many things like this that we can learn from our peers, and those who've come before.
 
#98 ·
David Thompson said:
OH NO! I can't stop myself!!

This is a good book: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/2ER6EXZWU63GO

I'm sorry...it was just a joke. Honestly, I thought it might be amusing.

A good book is so subjective. I read two pages of Fifty Shades and thought it was rubbish. Sold well, though. Shows how much I know.
I don't think anyone would accuse Fifty Shades of being a good book. It has 5,000 odd reviews on Amazon.com alone declaring how very badly written it is and that is why I resent it so much. Were it well written, I would wish it and James all the best, but to know that good writers can get nowhere while someone with no skill whatsoever can do so well, is heartbreaking.
 
#99 ·
Doglover said:
I don't think anyone would accuse Fifty Shades of being a good book. It has 5,000 odd reviews on Amazon.com alone declaring how very badly written it is and that is why I resent it so much. Were it well written, I would wish it and James all the best, but to know that good writers can get nowhere while someone with no skill whatsoever can do so well, is heartbreaking.
She was force-pushed. Oprah shows: "have you read Fifty Shades yet?" "What everyone is talking about!" Advertising to put multi-billion dollar companies to shame. It's an age-old sales trick: sell the sizzle.

The customer begins to think, "I better buy that so I'm not left out."

That's how you sell a crappy book into a bestseller. Indie authors don't have that avenue.
 
#100 ·
Laran Mithras said:
She was force-pushed. Oprah shows: "have you read Fifty Shades yet?" "What everyone is talking about!" Advertising to put multi-billion dollar companies to shame. It's an age-old sales trick: sell the sizzle.

The customer begins to think, "I better buy that so I'm not left out."

That's how you sell a crappy book into a bestseller. Indie authors don't have that avenue.
Back in 2003, we went on holiday to California. On a mini bus tour of Beverley Hills, there was this awful woman from Chicago, who insisted on telling us where she had been in Hollywood, who nattered all the way through the tour until I told her we had all paid $27 to hear what the tour guide had to say, not what she had to say.

Then she started telling everyone how she had been on the Oprah show, telling the world and his wife about the row she had had with her sister. Then she told everyone how easy it was to get on there and started giving out the phone number to all and sundry. They were all more polite than me, but now you've said that, I wish I'd taken that number! :)
 
#101 ·
Dan C. Rinnert said:
Even doing that, even knowing what readers are enjoying, doesn't necessarily help. For example, I looked at reviews of my bestselling book (which is not a bestseller, only my bestseller) to see what readers enjoyed about it and also studied critical comments as to what they didn't enjoy. I incorporated what I had learned into writing another book, trying to focus on what readers enjoyed and fix or eliminate the things that they didn't. I apparently failed because the resulting book is in strong competition to become my worst seller.

And . . . My bestselling book outsells my better written, planned and plotted book with characters that actually experience some degree of growth from the beginning to the end.

Granted, even knowing what readers want and buy isn't going to guarantee you can replicate it, but one would hope that knowing and incorporating that knowledge into your books would, at the very least, increase sales for those books as compared to other books where you didn't do that.
The small sample is only a small piece of the problem:

1. Way more people were exposed to the book than read it. Why? Maybe the audience is small for the genre. Maybe the covers are wrong for the genre. Maybe it's miscategorised. Whatever the case, the biggest barriers took effect before anyone read it.

2. Even a large number of reviewers saying the same things may mean nothing because reviewers imitate other reviewers. As soon as someone says grammar or characterization, everyone after piles on so as not to be thought ignorant. You see this pattern on every book with a lot of reviews.

3. Reviewers can probably tell you about quality issues (e.g., typos, formatting), but they're a poor source of high-level criticism about writing because all they can tell you is what they think the problems are. I've been editing for years. If I get a book or paper with a directive, the directive is always the same, "There are some grammar problems here." Yet these texts rarely have more grammar problems than the papers that I don't get. Invariably, the actual problems are structure, usage, style, etc., not grammar. But when people find something hard to read, they zero-in on the grammar problems because those are the things they recognize. In short, people are good at seeing problems, but they rarely have the knowledge to characterize them accurately.

4. Sturgeon's Law applies collectively and individually to how-to-write-a-bestseller books: 90% of all these books are crap, and 90% of the okay books are crap.
 
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