Saturday, November 22, 2008

Good Books, Terrible Writing

At the last write-in I attended, we got to talking about good books that overcome their less-than-stellar writing. You know they're out there: a book you like even though you know that it's not particularly well-written. I'm actually pretty forgiving of writing so long as there's an engaging plot.

My examples: Eragon by Christophen Paolini. Not well-written, still loved it. I'd also argue that the entire Harry Potter series isn't particularly well-written, though it's not as glaringly bad as Eragon. And then poor Stephanie Meyers, whose writing abilities appear to be inversely related to how interesting the book is. Twilight? Not a shining example of perfected prose, and yet the story captured me from start to finish. But by the time Breaking Dawn rolled around, the writing had at least marginally improved, yet I hate the book with such vehemence that I'm actually angry with Stephanie Meyers for ruining the series.

So what are your examples of books that overcome weak writing?

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Current NaNo word count: 48,024. I can almost taste 50k!

Current NaNo attitude: I can't wait to hit 50k. Now I just need to stay motivated to finish the novel.

3 comments:

Nancy said...

Oh, I'm sure if I concentrated I could tell if the writing was awful, but I'm so afraid that I'd realize that I like the awful writers better :">

Anyway...left you something on my blog. *grin*

LauraC said...

I thought the writing was so bad in Twilight that it did not overcome the coolness of the plot and story. I was too distracted by the terrible writing.

Let me think on this one. Good question.

Anonymous said...

I love your random questions! And I agree with you about Eragon - that is a great example. Another worth reading book with REALLY bad writing is "Bringing down the house." Good but not great story, but it is a great discussion book for the ethical issues it raises. Is Twilight worth reading?

How about good books that you enjoy but are embarassed to be seen reading in public? I would have to say the Rachel Morgan vampire series. LOL funny, really embarassing covers!
Dana