We’ve all said it at one time or another. Some novels are just plain badly written – yet doing quite well in the bookstores. That’s confusing to the ambitious newcomer who’s trying to trying to evaluate what she’s struggling to learn vs. what she sees hogging the bestseller lists.
The confusion was expressed to me years ago by a novelist friend, talking about the notoriously “bad” but fabulously successful best-sellers by Harold Robbins. “Harold Robbins says he’s the greatest novelist because he’s made more money than any novelist in history,” he said, “And I’m not sure he isn’t right.”
Maybe he wasn’t, but I was. He was only right if you define “greatest” as making the most money. If not, then he was wrong.
My frank opinion on that confusion is that it’s a false issue, made so by an unfortunate mingling of “good” and “money-making” as defining concepts. There should be no confusion: a good novel is good, no matter if it sells only 500 copies; a bad one is bad–even if it dominates the market.
Here’s my quick definition of bad fiction….
It is fiction that is all head, no body.
Why would fiction like that sell? For one thing, it’s easy to read. Like this: “he was attracted to Jane, and at the end of the evening, decided she was a lot more attractive that Karen.”
Simple, clear, you know what he’s saying–but not exactly what you’d call a rich reading experience.
Contrast it with this: “By the end of the evening, Jane’s scent hadpulled him toward her, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her stunning teeth, with the slight sensual gap in front. Karen had no scent. She projected plain solidness, gave no reason to keep your eyes on her.”
Also simple and clear, but richer: you can feel the sensual pull of Jane; Karen, made specific, is an obvious contrast to Jane; and the narrator’s cold-blooded analysis contains clues that define him–a calculating, most likely unpleasant character.
There’s a caveat, of course: you have to visualize what it says – actively visual it – and draw meaning from what you “see.” Does that make it harder to read? In a sense perhaps. But if that sense becomes our standard, all stories will have to read like “see Spot run.”
As for the publishing marketplace, here’s an analogy:
Bad food (over-processed, undernourishing) dominates the grocery marketplace in this country. Good food (organic, fundamentally nourishing) finds it hard to compete, but is prized by those who truly
love the highest quality eating experience.
Why does “bad” food dominate? Convenience is a big part of it. It’s just too easy to microwave a box or drop into Burger King.
We seem to have gone that way as food-consuming public, so don’t be confused or dismayed if the same values are carried over into our reading life and a book you don’t respect sits on the best seller list for weeks on end.
It’s no more significant than Twinkies outselling the finest creme brulet.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
“Good” has become a completely relative term in our culture and I like your food analogy. At the risk of sounding like a totally pompous ass, I have to say that if it’s popular in America, it probably ain’t good in terms of quality or artistic merit. All you need to do is take a look at the most popular television shows, the food we eat, the books we read and the movies we watch. But in keeping with your food analogy, we also have an elitist “emperor has no clothes” side to the coin. People will spend a fortune to for haute cuisine in a trendy restaurant. In much the same way, I think there are literary lions who could write a grocery list and there would be reviews in the New Yorker, whether the book is truly any “good” or not. Somewhere in the middle lie many undiscovered gems. The authors may not have been well paid, they may not have sold many books and they may not even be published, but the work is good. Whether or not a book is commercially or financially successful typically has zero relevance to whether or not it’s good. Some are and some aren’t.
True. The other side of “bad” is worth a mention. But I don’t think bad literary cult books pose the same false threat to developing fiction writers as bad best-sellers do. Newbies don’t really see them as the competition. They rarely make money, and like it or not, it’s the erroneous confusion of money with quality that’s at the root of the problem.
“it’s the erroneous confusion of money with quality that’s at the root of the problem.”
You’ve summed it up beautifully. Excellent post and thank you for the food for thought.