Definition of a Good Read

I should have thought of this topic before given this is the Goodreads blog! So what do I define as a good read then? Is it dependent on genre?

For me the answer to that last question is a firm no. For me a good read is one where I am so gripped by the characters I have to read on to find out what happens to them. It’s not a bad definition of a good read now, is it?

Those characters can be hobbits, middle aged women like me, women from the past, men from the past, and occasionally a monster.

I have a lot of sympathy for Baron Frankenstein’s “creature”. Mary Shelley asked the timeless question here of who is the monster and it isn’t the “creature”in my view.

So the author’s job then (and this is a challenge to me as a writer myself) is to come up with characters a reader will get behind and to make us care for those characters.

It’s not enough to like them. We as readers have to care deeply. It is that which keeps us reading.

Drama only means something if we care about the characters caught up in it.

Humorous writing will only make us laugh if we care about the characters who are making us laugh, whether they’re doing this knowingly or not.