Unpopular opinion (or maybe not): The grammar and cover don’t matter.

[Deleted member 42060]

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.)​

 

[Num]

The only thing I would disagree is that a good cover IS important because that is people’s first impression of your work so a bad cover is likely to make people not even give your story a try.This is just my opinion of course so I could be horrible wrong…

 

[K5Rakitan]

This is what editors are for. I listen to manuscripts before I decide whether to reject them or accept them so I don't see how bad the grammar is.

 

[Redemit]

They say “don’t judge a book by its cover”—that also applies to great-looking covers.

I've always said "don't judge a book by its cover" was actually intended for the beautiful covers and people and not so much the ugly ones

 

[ForestDweller]

There is no such thing as objectively good story.

 

[ElijahRyne]

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.)​

I agree with the story being above grammar, but not if that grammar is akin to a MTL. In my opinion, it goes story, grammar, synopsis, then cover. If it were a test, it would be weighted with story being about 45%, grammar 40%, synopsis 9.5%, and cover 4.5%. As long as it scores more than a 65% I would probably keep reading.

 

[Ilikewaterkusa]

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.)​

Wait what metrics are you using to define good stories? And I disagree on this part. “You may have the most beautiful novel cover and the most perfect grammar, but if the story is boring and objectively (once again) bad,”
Although your story idea may be something as mundane as bread you could make it interesting if you frame it well. And perhaps the story was made for a niche group.

 

[Daitengu]

So summing it up: Cover and grammar don't matter if the story sucks, therefore if the story is great, the cover and grammar still don't matter.

Mate, that's a hell of a logic fallacy. If a book was a house, the cover is the siding, the story is the frame, and the grammar is the drywall. Sure the house stands strong with a solid frame, but there's a lot of people that aren't going to go through the effort to fix it up. It's why only a small minority will read a machine translated novel.

 

[cryum]

I'm rather confused here, and I don't know if the issue is with the reddit thread or you all.

Story, Writing, and Grammar are 3 different things.

Kingdom Hearts has an awful story and subpar grammar, but it's huge because the writing captures some serious emotions and action.

Plenty of readers drop MTLs no matter how good the story and writing are, because the garbled grammar just take them out of it.

And I've seen some phenomenal story premises on scribble that don't go anywhere because they get bogged down expositioning the setting and game mechanics instead of pacing it properly. That's bad writing, no matter how good the grammar is.

 

[Mugsy]

TLDR: I need to be able to understand it. It needs to not bore me reading it. Grammar and Covers both do and don't matter.

Things I would require for something to be a good story: It needs to be understandable/readable/ have clarity (so formatting I guess). If I can understand it also needs to be entertaining to read, now that sounds vague because it is but, I've definitely dropped things because they were effectively somebody making a list of things that were happening in the most basic and boring way imaginable to the point if it was yogurt, plain by itself would be a better option.

For a brief example: I did this. Then I did this thing. Then I went over here... Just on and on for paragraphs and pages at a time. It doesn't have to be the most beautiful piece of writing imaginable but basically anything is better than that. If it's boring to read, no matter how intricate the plot may be, if it bores me to read I will not finish it. Though that is rarely something that comes up.

Good writing, to me, is basically the part that makes it entertaining. You can have something super basic going on and if you write it well enough it can be incredibly entertaining. It by no means needs to be grammatically perfect as perfect grammar tends to not always work the best in terms of creative writing.

Now actually getting to the topic of the thread; grammar only matters to the point that it affects how something is read. If bad grammar causes something to be read in a way that is not something the author intended, that is an issue. As long as the intent is conveyed, grammar largely doesn't matter to me.

Covers are kind of a mixed bag for me. "Bad" cover art does not mean the story is going to be bad. It just means the person that made it isn't as experienced or that they don't have as much time to make cover art. Now on the other hand if story has well made, custom art (not just something they've ripped off the internet somewhere) that implies that the person writing it cares enough or is making enough, possibly from the story itself, to get it made. Is that always the case? No, obviously not. But at least when it comes to sites like this, custom art, even if it's not something incredible, is usually a good sign.

This is not to say people just ripping stuff off the internet don't like their story, it just means that they want something that looks good and either can't draw it themselves, can't afford to commission someone, and/or don't know any better, or otherwise they're just being cheap and don't want to pay people for their work.

So do covers matter? No and Yes. On the whole? No. Can it potentially be a good preview of what to expect? Considering that's basically the point of a cover, yes, but not always.

As to the idea of “just because it’s popular, doesn’t mean it’s good” I actually agree. The reason being, I have read many things that are popular, and some of them were absolute garbage trash filled with reused characters and clichés, and I loved every minute of them.

 

[lnv]

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.)​

I think you've been reading too much MTL.

If you want to be really honest, readers prefer quantity. The more chapters released the better. This is why there are people reading MTL despite the poor grammar. But take away the quantity, and they would be way less interested.

Also, a cover just draws people in. So not sure why you compare it to grammar or writing. Once a person starts reading, what difference does a cover make other than knowing how a character may look like?

Of course once readers have too much to read or little time, quality becomes preferable (you can't put all readers on the same boat)

Overall, most of the top rated popular stuff tends to have at least okay grammar. End of the day, you are obviously expected to deliver all 3, Cause like all things, there is diminishing returns. And there is more to writing than grammar, style also plays a role. A good style can make people notice less poor grammar(to a reasonable extent), and a good style can also make a poor story better. I mean if we think about it by looking back, style/presentation is probably the most important thing as it keeps the reader engaged.

Tropes are the best example. Pretty much every novel/manga/anime is filled with tropes. It is the same exact story. But what makes things different is how the author presents them. This is why tropes aren't what's bad, it's copy and pasting tropes without thinking that is bad.

 

[Jemini]

I would say this depends entirely on 2 things. 1. What do you mean by story? And 2. What do you mean by writing?

There are several elements of what can be considered an aspect of a story, and several of those items can easily bleed over and be considered a part of the writing. For instance, is character part of the writing or the story? If you consider character to be part of the writing, the slice of life genre tends to do very well with a nearly non-existent story.

Is the plot writing or story? Most would call it the text-book aspect of what one might consider story, but there are various justifications that could be used to say it is part of writing as well.

The more aspects of story get re-defined as writing, the more the answer becomes "yes." However, if you define writing as only the spelling, grammar, and word-choices, then you are using the absolute most bare-bones definition of "writing." In this completely stripped-down version, the answer is "no." However, nobody who is serious about writing would limit the definition to such a narrow degree.

 

[Zirrboy]

In a similar fashion to Jemini's answer, I will say that mine can be yes or no depending on what you mean by "improve".

If you're referring to traction (f.e. pageviews), then no. Why would people not judge something based on first appearance just because there's a saying that dictates otherwise? Christians have the saying "love thy neighbor like yourself", yet are devout Christians necessarily charitable pacifists?

If you're talking about opinion of those who read it, I'm inclined to agree. Grammar might still be somewhat detrimental, but in this case content probably is the deciding factor.

 

[Kilolo]

uhhh, i honestly confused here. what does everyone means by "good writing" here?
does it solely about grammar? syntax? or the most notoriously famous "show, don't tell" stuff?

i don't know why you have an impression that a good writing couldn't improve a bad story, because if i see the list of popular webnovel/lightnovel, or even my own reading list : most of them actually had a subpar plot outline.
i mean, you can tell people the whole summary of the novel including the ending spoiler and all, and i would bet most people wouldn't be interested when hearing that.

but one thing i know for sure, most of them has good delivery at bringing their stories, the pacing are nice to follow, the paragraph are very easy to read and doesn't feel redundant at all, and the whole time reading the novel are giving an immersive experience even when i reading it for the 5th times.
and again, those novels i mentioned before are actually having a subpar plot, i seriously doubt you can achieve all that with a bad writing skills.

and i'm not speaking this from personal opinion, this is an observation based from the list of popular novel/webnovel, including my reading list.

because i do have some novel that i read solely for the plotline and i really want to know what happened to the story at the end, but almost none of them are something that i would read again for the second time. reason being, because the author writing flow isn't as amazing as those at the top rank.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

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.)​

Counterpoint: doesnt matter how good the story idea is if I get a fucking aneurysm trying to decipher its shitty grammar

uhhh, i honestly confused here. what does everyone means by "good writing" here?
does it solely about grammar? syntax? or the most notoriously famous "show, don't tell" stuff?

i don't know why you have an impression that a good writing couldn't improve a bad story, because if i see the list of popular webnovel/lightnovel, or even my own reading list : most of them actually had a subpar plot outline.
i mean, you can tell people the whole summary of the novel including the ending spoiler and all, and i would bet most people wouldn't be interested when hearing that.

but one thing i know for sure, most of them has good delivery at bringing their stories, the pacing are nice to follow, the paragraph are very easy to read and doesn't feel redundant at all, and the whole time reading the novel are giving an immersive experience even when i reading it for the 5th times.
and again, those novels i mentioned before are actually having a subpar plot, i seriously doubt you can achieve all that with a bad writing skills.

and i'm not speaking this from personal opinion, this is an observation based from the list of popular novel/webnovel, including my reading list.

because i do have some novel that i read solely for the plotline and i really want to know what happened to the story at the end, but almost none of them are something that i would read again for the second time. reason being, because the author writing flow isn't as amazing as those at the top rank.

"Good writing" or a "good story" has always been entirely subjective. Idiots may tell you otherwise and say, "oh well we actually have standards for what constitutes a good story and blah blah blah" but all that proves is those standards are just what has been noticed to provide appeal to a greater group of people. Not everyone is going to enjoy that, tho.

 

[SerikoLee]

True a bad story and good writing are not great, it doesn't even feel good while reading said story.
One of the biggest offenders of this was the writer for Halo 5, I mean it was a trainwreck so I will always take feedback then try to improve.

Statements on how to make a good story have been reached different levels in high school and college.
But it all comes down to memory and what story we are trying to make.

 

[Echimera]

Personally, I can suffer through some bad writing if I find a story interesting. I can even suffer through quite a bit of stuff I find objectively bad from a story perspective, if for example the characters are interesting to me.

However, I think there are cutoff points for both the quality of the story and the quality of the writing itself.

• I think things like (major) plot holes or character inconsistency are objective flaws in a story and I can only tolerate so much of that before I loose motivation to read further.
  • Events that don't follow logically from what happened before or that outright contradict established rules of the setting make it hard to care for the stakes, as they can arbitrarily be changed instead of overcome
  • Characters knowing or forgetting things at the whim of the author, or act contrary to what they are described and depicted as when it's needed, all 'so the plot can happen' makes it hard to take them seriously
• On the other hand, massive errors in grammar, especially things like punctuation, can make a text basically unreadable. At some point even the best story ever will struggle against that, if the act of reading becomes almost physically draining due to all the corrections I have to make in my head to actually understand what's going on.

Where these cutoff points are is most likely subjective, as everyone has different tolerances and preferences.
I don't think there is an upper limit however, or at least none we will ever be able to reach, only get infinitely close with ever smaller steps.


As for covers, I mostly care for these when it comes to actually buying physical books, where I mostly care that they look decent enough to not cause eye-cancer and that they ideally fit in with other installments of the same series.
A good cover never hurt though, as even for webnovels, the cover is the first thing we typically see. While it can't replace quality on storytelling and writing, it can help with visibility and making people look at the story in the first place.

The one thing I will take issue with, though, is false advertisement. Things like heavily featuring characters, objects or locations on the cover that have little to no presence in the actual story. To some degree, this is also true for titles.
This could mean that they are only in a minute part of the story in question, but more important to me is the narrative aspect. Just compare:

• The Lord of the Rings could have Sauron himself on the cover (as if having his epithet being the namesake for the series wasn't enough) and I'd still say it's a fitting cover. Sauron never shows up in person, but his presence is relevant throughout the story.
• On the other hand
• Or for games

 

[xluferx]

Yes and no, grammar isnt that important but there are limits to that. Some stories have just horrendous grammar you can't stomach reading it

 

[MR.DANTE]

a good writing doesn't change a bad story in to a good one but it make a lot of difference in how enjoyable reading the story is, you might have a wonderful story that is not enjoyable to read because it has bad grammar and get a lot less attention that it deserve because of that, a mediocre story that is easy to go thought because the writing is excellent or a bad story that has excellent writing that get more attention that it deserve because its easy to read

 

[Lloyd]

Cover absolutely matters. I know just based on the different covers I've used. The only time it is a non-issue is with certain smut related tags that get tons of clicks from horny people no matter what.