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

[Anon_Y_Mousse]

Nah, grammar DOES matter, Invisible dragon wouldn't be popular if not for the author's absolute mastery of the Korean language, no? Oh and cover is absolutely important, one of yesterday's posts proved it through statistics.

Side note, grammar and spelling by no means equate to good writing.

 

[SilvCrimBlac]

Yep, good taste and good writing can definitely be called subjective. Best example of this: People actually think He Who Fights With Monsters is a good story. The whole story is a pile of shiny, polished dog shit to me, but many others love it and rave about it. Subjective.

 

[GodlessEmperor]

Writing a novel is like cooking a meal. If one of your ingredients is rotten, who would want to eat it? If it looks like shit but tastes great only those who know your cooking would want to try it.
- A good cover means more pageviews.
- A good synopsis means more people read the prologue.
- A good story and grammar (and writing style) means more people continue reading your story.
Story and grammar can uplift each other to a certain extend. If you have the greatest story every people will be fine if the grammar is mediocre. If you have the worlds greatest grammar a mediocre story is also fine. Though it is definitely easier to uplift bad grammar with good story.
In the end, everything is subjective as writing is a form of art. Therefore the greatest story/grammar doesn't exist anyway.

 

[Senpapi]

People will always judge books by their covers. That's why books have covers. It's everyone's first impression to a story, and a good first impression is important. If someone thinks the cover looks awful, they're probably less likely to check the story out.

As for the writing. No, good writing won't make a bad story better, but it'll make it easier to read. No matter how interesting a story is, if the grammar is atrocious, then I'm likely to drop it. I'd rather read a bad story that I can understand without effort, than a good story where I have to spend a minute per sentence, just analyzing what the author's trying to say there.

 

[2021]

Good grammar makes everything beatable to read. Bad grammar makes story bad because people will give up on trying to understand what happening

 

[TotallyHuman]

I don't know. It feels like the og thread said something along the lines of "you can make a story with a" bad" premise/plot better by using good writing skills", not saying things like "good grammar/language and/or cover can improve a story".

 

[MajorKerina]

Grammar and awkward phrasings are obstacles for the reader to engage with a story. I find when I’m proofing certain works if there’s a phrasing or a choice of style or a mistake then it’s like you’re listening to someone play some music and suddenly they banged on the wrong key. You can still overlook that but it’s going to be a distraction from your overall enjoyment. Readers have a good sense. They may not understand all the intricacies but they understand when something feels off. So far as a cover if there’s one that’s highly provocative or unusual then that reader is going to pay more attention when they’re looking through a variety of stories for something they want to read.

 

[Kitsura]

Horrible take,

of course a book with no story is going to suck. But even a half baked story with good prose and cover will sell well. There are plenty of stories that are simplistic plot wise but are carried by their prose