If a book is 'poorly written'...

[Lisa, the one who reads habitually]

I have heard of many books before that have been deemed as being badly written. The most recent example that springs to mind would be The Twilight Saga books. I constantly heard about how badly written they were.

But those books that were so poorly written, were read by millions of people. Is the point to always write a perfectly written book? Or is it better to write something that gets many people to enjoy reading? I have always been a big reader, but was at a point in life where I was reading maybe one book every three or four months, then I read the Twilight books and enjoyed them so much they revived my love of reading again and read several books a month!

[R.F.G.]

Lisa wrote: "I have heard of many books before that have been deemed as being badly written. The most recent example that springs to mind would be The Twilight Saga books. I constantly heard about how badly wri..."

Sometimes "Poorly Written" as defined by a critic, traditional publisher, or writers of a particular genre isn't the same creature as defined by readers.

[Rosanna]

Great question, Lisa. At the end of the day, we love what we love. If a book made you cry or sigh or wish for more, despite some grammatical errors or problems with syntax/vocabulary, it still has merit. Our reading preferences are so personal.

As they say, "One person's trash is another person's treasure." :)

[Shona, Bibliophile.]

With Twilight, I think Meyer wrote in a style that she was comfortable with. As with most things if you try to do things in a way you're not comfortable with it usually doesn't turn out the way you wanted it to.

Personally I think its the connection to the characters that make a book well written. Again using the Twilight Saga for example, Meyer deliberately wrote Bella so that the 'average' girl/woman could imagine themselves in her shoes. A lot of people see this as a weakness in her writing skills, but actually I think it should be considered a strength, for those who really enjoyed Twilight it was in part this connection to Bella that fuelled it.

[Arielle Rae]

To be honest, I don't notice if a book is 'poorly written' or not, as long as I enjoy reading it.

[Lisa, the one who reads habitually]

I agree Arielle, if I enjoy a book, I don't notice. There have been books I have given 5 star ratings too, because I enjoyed them so much, then I have had a nosey at other reviews and seen people slating them for being badly written

[P.J.]

I agree that much of that depends on what the definition is. To me, poorly written just means that there's something about what the writer is doing or not doing that distracts me too much from being immersed in the story or bonding with the characters.

Sometimes it could be vague or confusing writing styles, not enough thought or revision after the first draft to catch and patch obvious holes in the story that will trip up the reader, or rereading the draft's from each character's point of view to see if the story holds up from their perspective. (If not, it may not hold up from my perspective as a reader.) A lot of those issues can be fixed on a rewrite since the story itself might be good. Some readers are just more talented at being able to fill in the story's holes with their imaginations and to give writers the benefit of the doubt. So in some ways, a gifted reader can compensate for a writer's shortcomings, though the writer should try very hard not to depend upon that.

In the end, as everyone has said in one way or other, it's how the reader can connect and stay connected to the story. That's all that matters in the long run.

[Claire, Book Lover]

If I enjoy the story and the grammatical errors etc don't distract me from the story I will still give it a good rating. To me the important thing is enjoying what I'm reading and connecting with the characters and the story. If the errors distract you from that, then that would be a problem and make it less enjoyable, but as I said to me the story is more important.