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Deleted member 42060
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I saw this Reddit thread where someone asked, “Can good writing improve a bad story?” Most of them said yes, but I slightly disagree. No matter how good your writing is, you can’t ever better an objectively bad story. Of course, you might lash out at me that “there’s no objectively bad or good,” but I think we should set boundaries here.
You may have the most beautiful novel cover and the most perfect grammar, but if the story is boring and objectively (once again) bad, readers just won’t care. Readers would rather prefer an objectively good story with atrocious grammar and atrocious cover. They say “don’t judge a book by its cover”—that also applies to great-looking covers.
So, I’ll make my point here: Grammar and cover don’t matter. Only the story matters. Grammar and cover are merely side effects of your experiences as a writer—they can improve over time. Of course, you might say that writing a story is like delivering a joke. The story might be good, but if you pepper it with bad writing, it becomes utterly flawed. The joke might be good, but if you fail to deliver it, no one will laugh.
I’d say “readers would rather prefer a good story with bad writing,” but personally (hypocritically enough), I’d rather read a bad story with good writing. Bad writing annoys me, and it can be quite jarring. If you ask me again “Can good writing improve a bad story?” I’ll be obliged to say yes. It does improve a bad story, but if you’re going to focus only on grammar and cover, the story won’t get any (fundamentally) better.
So…yeah.
Lash out at me now.
(I think saying that “just because it’s popular, doesn’t mean it’s good” is copium.)
You may have the most beautiful novel cover and the most perfect grammar, but if the story is boring and objectively (once again) bad, readers just won’t care. Readers would rather prefer an objectively good story with atrocious grammar and atrocious cover. They say “don’t judge a book by its cover”—that also applies to great-looking covers.
So, I’ll make my point here: Grammar and cover don’t matter. Only the story matters. Grammar and cover are merely side effects of your experiences as a writer—they can improve over time. Of course, you might say that writing a story is like delivering a joke. The story might be good, but if you pepper it with bad writing, it becomes utterly flawed. The joke might be good, but if you fail to deliver it, no one will laugh.
I’d say “readers would rather prefer a good story with bad writing,” but personally (hypocritically enough), I’d rather read a bad story with good writing. Bad writing annoys me, and it can be quite jarring. If you ask me again “Can good writing improve a bad story?” I’ll be obliged to say yes. It does improve a bad story, but if you’re going to focus only on grammar and cover, the story won’t get any (fundamentally) better.
So…yeah.
Lash out at me now.
(I think saying that “just because it’s popular, doesn’t mean it’s good” is copium.)