What makes a bad novel?

[KrisVFX]

We all already know what makes a good novel. But have you ever wondered what makes a bad novel?
Is it the story, grammar? Or the way the plot is managed?!

 

[JYLewis]

Two things will break a story for most. Grammar (even a really basic spell check and proof-reader can fix this). Secondly plot seeming directionless and repetitive with no clear goal. World building is almost always okay for most people and the story itself is almost always interesting initially, but it can get lost in the weeds due to a lack of clear middle and end.

 

[DubstheDuke]

I think that at the end of the day, what makes or breaks a novel will always be the execution.

I agree with the person above that if you have no plot or direction and are writing just to write, then typically the story won't be good. There should be some sort of driving series of events. In my opinion, if there is no permanent feeling of progress in the story, then the story isn't very good (Unless it's a fluffy slice of life story, in which case that's the entire purpose).

But more importantly, how do you actually bring about your ending? How do you make certain reveals, how do you build tension, how do you build a complex character, all these things fall under execution. If you have a great plot and bad execution, the story will be bad. If you have a cliche, typical, and uninteresting plot but with excellent execution, the story will be good.

 

[Jemini]

I think that at the end of the day, what makes or breaks a novel will always be the execution.

I agree with the person above that if you have no plot or direction and are writing just to write, then typically the story won't be good. There should be some sort of driving series of events. In my opinion, if there is no permanent feeling of progress in the story, then the story isn't very good (Unless it's a fluffy slice of life story, in which case that's the entire purpose).

But more importantly, how do you actually bring about your ending? How do you make certain reveals, how do you build tension, how do you build a complex character, all these things fall under execution. If you have a great plot and bad execution, the story will be bad. If you have a cliche, typical, and uninteresting plot but with excellent execution, the story will be good.

I would actually have to go a step further. The "make or break" is 100% dependent on execution. Whether or not all the other story elements fit into the formula of what usually appeals to people only determines how much weight the execution has to carry.

If you pull off all the things such as plot, grammar, characterization, and world building perfectly in order with the typical formulas for what works, then all execution has to be responsible for is making sure the story doesn't feel stale due to how to-the-formula it is. However, if you start messing with things and have a disorderly seeming plot or characters that just seem to have no internal consistency (like episode 1 of Steins;Gate for a new viewer,) then you had better pull off something AMAZING with an absolutely perfect execution in order to make the story good regardless of how messed up everything else is. (Durarara would be another example of a story that breaks all the rules but is still awesome due to an excellent execution.)

I have seen all kinds of stories that break every rule imaginable, and I have seen them turn out both good and bad. The thing that makes the difference is entirely how well it's executed.

Ultimately though, your ability to pull off a good execution is entirely dependent on your skill as a writer. In other words, you REALLY should not start breaking the formula until you have gotten very skilled as a writer to the point where you can pull off these awesome executions. First, you should get some practice with more formulaic writing before you even attempt something crazy. Or, to put it another way, you need to understand the formula before you make the decision to break the formula if you want to have any degree of success in doing so.

 

[Wulfos]

Eh... this might be a bit shameless... but you people seem kinda knowledgable about this stuff... i would like to receive a bit more constructive criticism. I know entirely well my grammar in the story is meh... but i would like to know if my story is decent overall. I have a feeling there is a lot wrong with the current story as it is written but overall i am kinda happy. Still wanted to know what you guys that seem to know what you are talking about could tell me about it. Even if it would be a bit burny for me. The story is Rat in the dungeon. Sorry to bother but id like to really know.

 

[BenJepheneT]

There's no good or bad novel; only those that entertains, offends, and bores. Think of it as a triangle. You can be offensive and boring OR entertaining and boring, which that you have no more tricks up your sleeve and ride the gimmick as far as possible.

 

[gaylolis]

i think it's bad when the MC lets everyone walk over them like a doormat and when they're being beta as fuck in general.

a lot of Japanese novels just rub me the wrong way, or probably they're written so the readers will feel pleasure watching the MC get bodied by everyone instead of sympathizing with them.

and it grinds my gears when they always spared a villain who end up causing bigger trouble in the end--I think I always dropped the story at that point. it's one reason why i much prefer chinese novels.

In short, everything that crossed my bottom line of enjoyment, I won't bother reading anymore.

 

[CosmoTheBat]

Two things will break a story for most. Grammar (even a really basic spell check and proof-reader can fix this). Secondly, the plot seeming directionless and repetitive with no clear goal. The world-building is almost always okay for most people and the story itself is almost always interesting initially, but it can get lost in the weeds due to a lack of clear middle and end.

I will have to somewhat disagree. Don't get me wrong grammar and world-building is important. But in my opinion, what makes a bad novel is bad characters. Any story can be good if you have good characters. I know we are talking about novels but take star wars the original trilogy and the sequels for example. One is universally loved and has ensured through the ages, having helped form the sci-fi genre while the other one's only positive impact was boosting alcohol sales because everyone rushed to get drunk to forget about it (myself included). Even though both stories are very similar when it comes to story alone. Why because of characters. Like at the start of new hope is just a farmer boy that has dreams of being something bigger until he is called to adventure. Is he a hero yet? No, he gets his ass kick by Muslims, I mean sand people and on old fart has to save his ass a few times. But by the end of the movie, he becomes a hero by blowing up the death star. Then look at Ray, from the begging until the end she is perfect not a single character flaw to speak off. This makes her extremely boring because you know nothing bad is gonna happen to her. Anyways my point is you can take those characters and put them in any story and it will be interesting or it will fail. Stories are like roads and the characters are like cars and we are the passengers. If you have a good car almost any road and the journey will be enjoyable no matter the state of the road, but if your car (characters) can't even start what's the point of a perfect road.

 

[iamchangingthissoon]

The amount of times the author goes on a random hiatus without saying anything, or having a awful release schedule (like me because I don't have any) (well not really because I don't meet the 20k mark but still)

 

[Nneeil]

I will have to somewhat disagree. Don't get me wrong grammar and world-building is important. But in my opinion, what makes a bad novel is bad characters. Any story can be good if you have good characters. I know we are talking about novels but take star wars the original trilogy and the sequels for example. One is universally loved and has ensured through the ages, having helped form the sci-fi genre while the other one's only positive impact was boosting alcohol sales because everyone rushed to get drunk to forget about it (myself included). Even though both stories are very similar when it comes to story alone. Why because of characters. Like at the start of new hope is just a farmer boy that has dreams of being something bigger until he is called to adventure. Is he a hero yet? No, he gets his ass kick by Muslims, I mean sand people and on old fart has to save his ass a few times. But by the end of the movie, he becomes a hero by blowing up the death star. Then look at Ray, from the begging until the end she is perfect not a single character flaw to speak off. This makes her extremely boring because you know nothing bad is gonna happen to her. Anyways my point is you can take those characters and put them in any story and it will be interesting or it will fail. Stories are like roads and the characters are like cars and we are the passengers. If you have a good car almost any road and the journey will be enjoyable no matter the state of the road, but if your car (characters) can't even start what's the point of a perfect road.

Aye, but you can't pull off good characters with shitty grammar and poor storytelling skills.

 

[Zero300]

What makes a bad novel - MC is a Mary Sue.
What makes a good novel - Mary and Sue are saiyans and they do fusion to become the strongest Mary Sue.

 

[K5Rakitan]

1) Infodumping
2) Stereotypes

This last one is more of a personal preference, but what really turns me off a novel is when the author presents monogamy as the only acceptable path to happiness.

 

[LostLibrarian]

Imho I would agree with the idea, that a story is about change in some form though adversaries in any form. Hence my simple answer would be, that a novel, where everything stays unchanged is a bad story.

You can have bad characters but still tell a good story, you can have bad grammar and still convey a compelling argument, you can have bad twists or even offensive content but that'll mostly change the size of your target audience and what those people expect. If you don't deliver on your promises, a lot of people will dislike the book, but some will still find value in the time it took the story to get there.

But if nothing changes, then there are just characters without a story. And that - to me - would be a bad novel.

 

[ZynGrand]

I think structure is real important to what makes a story good or bad.

If the chapter and scene breaks are at bad moments, that can make the story disjointed. If the time skips are too long and you try changing things up too quickly, readers will get confused.

Write the scene too long, readers will get bored. Write too short and people won't get pulled in.

A mistake I made was focusing on chapter length instead of chapter content. It's fine to have a goal for your word count, but you need to remember that what you write needs to actually have focus.

 

[hauntedwritings]

I will have to somewhat disagree. Don't get me wrong grammar and world-building is important. But in my opinion, what makes a bad novel is bad characters. Any story can be good if you have good characters. I know we are talking about novels but take star wars the original trilogy and the sequels for example. One is universally loved and has ensured through the ages, having helped form the sci-fi genre while the other one's only positive impact was boosting alcohol sales because everyone rushed to get drunk to forget about it (myself included). Even though both stories are very similar when it comes to story alone. Why because of characters. Like at the start of new hope is just a farmer boy that has dreams of being something bigger until he is called to adventure. Is he a hero yet? No, he gets his ass kick by Muslims, I mean sand people and on old fart has to save his ass a few times. But by the end of the movie, he becomes a hero by blowing up the death star. Then look at Ray, from the begging until the end she is perfect not a single character flaw to speak off. This makes her extremely boring because you know nothing bad is gonna happen to her. Anyways my point is you can take those characters and put them in any story and it will be interesting or it will fail. Stories are like roads and the characters are like cars and we are the passengers. If you have a good car almost any road and the journey will be enjoyable no matter the state of the road, but if your car (characters) can't even start what's the point of a perfect road.

I absolutely agree with this. The following is just the speculations and point of view of a rookie, who knows nothing but wants their opinion to be immortalized forever on the internet.

Grammar simply makes reading smooth. I assume all are readers here, and maybe like myself, want to simply 'sink into' stories. Poor grammar kicks you out of it.

Worldbuilding makes you curious. But it's dependent on a basic rule of writing - show, don't tell. Yes, when you have a new story, you have a lot of things you want (or need) the readers to understand. But the key is to drawing it out. Make your readers live it, not read it.

Characters are what make you stay. Because THEY are the true story, not anything else.
Characters need - pun intended - a little character. They need a motive for why they are doing what they are doing, why they make the choices they do. How then? As the saying goes, strife builds character. And that is what brings us to the idea.

Idea - or the plot - is overall, in my opinion in almost any successful book or novel I've read, is about strife. Something is wrong with the world of your main character. By choice or by fate, they become involved.

And here's a final opinion on characters. If you have a good grasp of your characters, you know instictively what they will say or do in a situation. And before you know it, the characters are leading the story for you. You're just their mouthpiece.

 

[Wintertime]

Directionless plot is a big one. Grammar is alright as long as I can somewhat understand them. The characters have to be interesting, as well.

 

[Zavha0mnic]

Read my story if you want an example of a bad/mediocre at best one.

Let me tell you why I think mine could use improvement:

The style feels inconsistent, as does the MC. This is mostly because it’s my first story.

The MC is constantly getting beat around, then shameless time-skip.

MC gets beat around again but... I can’t spoil that part it’s not written yet.



Bad novels are commonly written by first time writers who rush themselves. Maybe even second or third time writers.

I stopped rushing myself and instantly felt an increase in quality.

Shameless plug done.

 

[JayDirex]

i think it's bad when the MC lets everyone walk over them like a doormat and when they're being beta as fuck in general.

a lot of Japanese novels just rub me the wrong way, or probably they're written so the readers will feel pleasure watching the MC get bodied by everyone instead of sympathizing with them.

and it grinds my gears when they always spared a villain who end up causing bigger trouble in the end--I think I always dropped the story at that point. it's one reason why i much prefer chinese novels.

In short, everything that crossed my bottom line of enjoyment, I won't bother reading anymore.

No, the Japanese are bunch herbivore pu$$ie$ accepting of indirectness, ambivalence, and characters who display a level density that no human can suspend disbelief of. Heck, i don't even mind if the character isn't the strongest, just so long as he has sense in his head...Japanese gotta write to their virgin audiences who actually pay money for them dam figurines.

 

[JYLewis]

I would actually have to go a step further. The "make or break" is 100% dependent on execution. Whether or not all the other story elements fit into the formula of what usually appeals to people only determines how much weight the execution has to carry.

If you pull off all the things such as plot, grammar, characterization, and world building perfectly in order with the typical formulas for what works, then all execution has to be responsible for is making sure the story doesn't feel stale due to how to-the-formula it is. However, if you start messing with things and have a disorderly seeming plot or characters that just seem to have no internal consistency (like episode 1 of Steins;Gate for a new viewer,) then you had better pull off something AMAZING with an absolutely perfect execution in order to make the story good regardless of how messed up everything else is. (Durarara would be another example of a story that breaks all the rules but is still awesome due to an excellent execution.)

I have seen all kinds of stories that break every rule imaginable, and I have seen them turn out both good and bad. The thing that makes the difference is entirely how well it's executed.

Ultimately though, your ability to pull off a good execution is entirely dependent on your skill as a writer. In other words, you REALLY should not start breaking the formula until you have gotten very skilled as a writer to the point where you can pull off these awesome executions. First, you should get some practice with more formulaic writing before you even attempt something crazy. Or, to put it another way, you need to understand the formula before you make the decision to break the formula if you want to have any degree of success in doing so.

One story that just began to drag and got extremely repetitive is on Royal Road Every Body likes Large Chests.

 

[JYLewis]

No, the Japanese are bunch herbivore pu$$ie$ accepting of indirectness, ambivalence, and characters who display a level density that no human can suspend disbelief of. Heck, i don't even mind if the character isn't the strongest, just so long as he has sense in his head...Japanese gotta write to their virgin audiences who actually pay money for them dam figurines.

Japanese have some great ideas in terms of worldbuilding, even writing style, and the overall plot is great. They really seem to struggle not making every character a one-dimensional trope (there are exceptions of course). That isn't to say it is bad it just would be nice for a LN or WN from Japan to be more than kinda lame guy or overpowered cocky badass gets a harem of girls or the their really is only one girl he/she likes, but for some reason 20 other girls are all trying to get in his pants and have no self-worth at all.