As a novice writer and a devout reader, I often question what makes a person read and write the way they do. In particular what makes readers read novels that are poorly written? For example: last week a young ACE worker at the hospital (these are students in school for nursing who obtain jobs at our hospital to gain experience, they follow the nurses around and take notes and ask questions and get paid to do so) anyway Jessica was following me on the evening shift. We got on the topic about books. She knew that I was a dedicated novel consumer. She had recently purchased The DaVinci Code and was halfway through the book. (Keep in mind this topic has nothing to do with that book. Just keep reading.) She was so smitten by the book. She couldn’t stop talking about it. She also told me, and I found this hard to believe that she had never read a novel before since she was a young girl; being a college student obtaining a Bachelor’s degree that just amazed me.
Anyway I told her how I too had enjoyed the story, but that Dan Brown’s writing was crap. I recently went back and re-read the book to find out why everyone is so head strong about the book being poorly written. When I paid attention to specific detail, I understood why. She didn’t notice anything and thought that Dan Brown was an excellent writer.
So here’s the discussion: If your plot is so strong can you actually be a poor writer and have people drool over your book? Do people who don’t write or know any better just read books without ever noticing that it’s poorly written? Do they not notice because the plot pulls them in so much?
I was once told here that plot is everything that if you have good plot you will be big. I didn’t think that was true especially since I found character development and dialogue, scene description, and other aspects more important to plot, but now I wonder if that’s true. If you have good plotting techniques will you make it? Even with poor literary quality?
Anyway I told her how I too had enjoyed the story, but that Dan Brown’s writing was crap. I recently went back and re-read the book to find out why everyone is so head strong about the book being poorly written. When I paid attention to specific detail, I understood why. She didn’t notice anything and thought that Dan Brown was an excellent writer.
So here’s the discussion: If your plot is so strong can you actually be a poor writer and have people drool over your book? Do people who don’t write or know any better just read books without ever noticing that it’s poorly written? Do they not notice because the plot pulls them in so much?
I was once told here that plot is everything that if you have good plot you will be big. I didn’t think that was true especially since I found character development and dialogue, scene description, and other aspects more important to plot, but now I wonder if that’s true. If you have good plotting techniques will you make it? Even with poor literary quality?
