What Makes a Book Good?
Terry Odell
It’s done. But not really. Yes, I reached “the end” of the manuscript, which is a major part of the writing process. I wrapped it up at around 76,500 words.
Now what? I have 16 days before I have to send it to my editor. I print it in my ‘fool the eye’ (and save paper) format. Different font, single-spaced, two columns, print on both sides of the paper. I also have my board of sticky notes to go through.
And I really created extra work for myself this time around, because I didn’t write chapter summaries and time stamps as I finished each chapter. My bad. So, as I’m reading and marking up my printouts—and adding more sticky notes as I run across things that need elaboration or deleting—I’m also writing my chapter summaries. Longhand. I hope I can read them when the time comes!
But getting ready to deliver the best manuscript I can to my editor always makes me wonder if it will be good enough. Will she send it back after three chapters and say it’s not going to work? Or will she say it’ll work if you change your characters, move the setting, cut this thread, add another one. All of which made me think about what makes a book good. Eventually, it’s in the hands, eyes, or ears of the reader. Which then led me to thinking about a recent read. I’m not mentioning title or author, or the overall story, because I don’t think it’s fair to the author, and that’s not the point of this post.
I belong to a neighborhood book club. To pick what we read, each month, someone suggests about 4 books, we vote, and majority rules. The vast majority of the selections are not what I’d choose on my own, but I have found some books I’m glad I read. A couple, I’ve even bought to add to my bookshelves. (Mostly, I get the books from the library—yay libraries—because I don’t like spending money on something I’m not likely to keep.)
Usually, the books would be categorized as literary, women’s fiction, or—who knew this was a genre classification?—book club books.
This month’s read had me befuddled. It was classified as a mystery/thriller/crime novel in reviews, so I thought I’d like it. It came in at almost 500 pages, and at least 300 of them were superfluous. I finished it, because I kept waiting for it to live up to the bazillion accolades and awards from sites like the New York Times, Time Magazine, New York Public Library, Washinton Post, Boston Globe, NPR … the list goes on.
I went to Amazon. The book ranks in the top 25 in the overall Amazon store. Not too shabby. I scrolled down to see what readers thought. What I generally do when I look at reader reviews is zero in on the 3 stars and under to see what people didn’t like about the book. For this book, the feedback from those matched my thoughts perfectly.
I’ve already returned the book to the library, so I can’t go back and count the POV characters, but I’d estimate at least 10. If not that many, it sure felt like it. There was one I sort of liked. The others weren’t worth the ink on the page as far as I was concerned. Nothing to like about any of them.
Then there was the overall structure. Some POVs were written in 1st person, others in 3rd. I don’t think there was a JSB ‘mirror moment’ for any of them. If so, it was buried so deeply that I never noticed.
Chronology? The book covered several decades in time. The author had a list of the decades/years as chapter headers, and the “now” for that chapter was in bold. (I confess, it took me a while to figure that out, and even if I had, my brain couldn’t put things in chronological order to keep track of the story. I’m a linear writer and reader.) If you could keep things straight and remember them, you could follow character arcs, but I don’t want to work that hard when I’m reading fiction. Or take notes.
Overall, I got to the end—which wrapped things up, but seemed silly and contrived. Book club meets next week, and I’ll be curious to see whether anyone else was bothered by the same things I was. The writing was fine. The overall story, had it been written in a more linear fashion, with fewer POV characters (and pages!), was fine. But the book, to me, was anything but fine.
Which, in the end, reminds me that not everyone likes every book, and once mine is the best it can be, I should let it go and move on.
What about you, TKXers. What turns you off in a book that others say is fantastic?
New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings
Double Intrigue
When your dream assignment turns into more than you bargained for
Shalah Kennedy has dreams of becoming a senior travel advisor—one who actually gets to travel. Her big break comes when the agency’s “Golden Girl” is hospitalized and Shalah is sent on a Danube River cruise in her place. She’s the only advisor in the agency with a knowledge of photography, and she’s determined to get stunning images for the agency’s website.
Aleksy Jakes wants out. He’s been working for an unscrupulous taskmaster in Prague, and he’s had enough. When he spots one of his coworkers in a Prague hotel restaurant, he’s shocked to discover she’s not who he thought she was.
As Shalah and Aleksy cruise along the Danube, the simple excursion soon becomes an adventure neither of them imagined.
Like bang for your buck? I have a new Mapleton Bundle. Books 4, 5, and 6 for one low price.
Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”
Congratulations on finishing another book, Terry! I identify with your doubts–is it any good? Is it dog poop? We can’t judge our own work objectively.
I also identify with your puzzlement over why some books become huge hits. When I read mega-bestsellers, I often wonder what all the fuss was about. Flat boring characters, long tedious passages of exposition where nothing happens, predictable endings, etc.
Are we fussier b/c we’re writers and see flaws that many readers skip over b/c most are not hyper-critical writers? They fall in love with something, but what? It’s a mystery.
Look forward to seeing your latest!
Thanks, Debbie.
A writer friend, when I was just toying with writing for fun, said, “Once you’re a writer, you’ll never read the same way again.”
I’d say she was spot on.
“You’ve gotta read this book. It’s fantastic!” Or “Check this book out! It’s on the New York Times Best Seller List!” Phrases like that usually have the opposite effect on me. Not because of anticipated quality of the book, but because I’m a very picky reader to begin with. I have certain timeframes and locales I’m interested in which most of modern fiction is not. And I know that chances are, if the majority considers it wildly popular, it’s going to have the opposite effect on me, so I rarely base my reads on others’ recommendations.
I think it stems from primary school days when I was forced to read “the classics”. UGH!
As a writer, I’m just excited when I read a novel that turns off my inner writer/analyzer and I just read the story for enjoyment. That’s when a book has succeeded.
Books that turn off my inner editor are rare these days, BK. (Maybe because I’m in my first round edits of the wip?)
A high school English teacher used to have us write down (on a half sheet of paper–I’ll always remember him for that)–the book we were reading. He’d return them with either a +, check +, check, check- or a -. (We’d share which books got the plusses with each other and add them to our lists.) But one thing I’ll remember was him saying that if you wanted to read a good book, stay away from the best-seller lists.
No mirrors? No wonder it meandered! (I’m only half joking…thanks for the mention.)
Overt darkness as a theme turns me off. It’s easy to end a book with cynical ambiguity or hopelessness. Beautiful prose doesn’t help.
I was thinking of you yesterday as I reached this passage in my editing pass: She stared into the mirror. Would she ever want to be Madison again? Not in name, but the person beneath the exterior?
No. She was Madeline Sharp, inside and out.
And, lo and behold it’s just about at the midpoint. Not bad for a pantser, eh?
👍🕺
My book club is reading a Pulitzer Prize winning book that is 450 pages long and has 9 POV characters. Three of our members have said they’re struggling to read and understand it. As a tree hugger I loved so much about it–the gorgeous, lyrical prose, the way the author mingled these POV characters as time progressed, the theme of how trees communicate with each other, so much to love. But. But a huge portion of the book is telling and that’s the only way the author can pack so much time/chronology into the story, covering decades in the lives of these characters. The reader waits hundreds of pages to see how the story connects the characters. It has an in-your-face message about a controversial political issue and science versus fake news. Ecoterrorism & first amendment rights, etc. It’s one of those books that the “literary” community loves, but the average reader wants to throw against a wall. What makes a book “good” is definitely in the eyes of the reader . . . .
Thanks for chiming in, Kelly –
It’s a rare book that our book club agrees with across the board, and I do have a reputation for being hyper-critical, but that’s what being a writer does. I, for one, am not fond of gorgeous, lyrical prose if it makes me think about the words and sentences instead of the story. But yes, one book won’t appeal to every reader. Thank goodness there are so many to choose from!
Agreed!
This is a safe space for this. I slogged through Tolkien and did not like it. That, ‘the Elf made tea’ needed 13 pages did me in.
I enjoy books that hit the right mix. Freshness, pace, accuracy are all things I look for. I want to be engaged. I don’t count on best seller lists anymore. Too many clunkers.
I was thinking about this last night. I read a post about reading a friend’s book. The book in question was a thousand page trilogy. I ended up alpha reading a friend’s book (also book one of a trilogy). I am not the world’s greatest speller. But I needed to stop counting spelling/grammar errors around page 20.
If I’m ever reading a manuscript for someone–and I don’t undertake such tasks often–I make sure I tell them I’m going to be brutal in pointing out errors, and hyper critical when it comes to the basics of keeping me engaged in the story.
Congratulations on finishing your latest book. As it so happens, I did likewise yesterday *Air high-give* 🙂
Turns off for me include slow, meandering starts, no characters I care about, and too much darkness in the book. No surprise that I’m not a horror reader (I was once, but that’s no longer my reading jam).
I’m looking for immersion, compelling characters, and an engrossing, engaging story that moves.
Back at you Dale! Now the real ‘fun’ begins!
Characters, characters, characters for me. Accuracy is important, although I generally trust authors to have done their research. I don’t like having to stop to look things up. The book in question had scent tracking dogs called off because of rain, which is an ‘iffy’ area, but I checked with a dog-handler friend to confirm before I dinged the book for that. There were enough other things I didn’t like.
Congratulations on finishing the manuscript, Terry! It’s always fun (?) to get the first editorial feedback.
The way our book club works is each member chooses the book for the meeting she hosts. I’ll be hosting in June, so I’ve been thrashing around looking for a great book. I picked a couple of books to read that are best sellers and on well-known book club lists. The books are so popular, I had to actually check out paper copies from the library because the waiting list for ecopies was too long.
Now I’m usually a good audience, but I returned the first book to the library after reading about 25%. Too many pages, too much political correctness. I’m about halfway through the second book, and I may just take that one back too. It’s all about relationships between people I don’t really care about.
So I’m still looking for a book. Anybody have a good suggestion for a bookclub read?
The host chooses the book for the next meeting, but the group votes on 3-4 suggestions. One that everyone (surprisingly) agreed deserved top marks was Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See. Don’t know if your club focuses on a particular genre. Another one that’s been well-received everywhere, even by non-mystery readers (Yay Maggie!) is Suspect by Robert Crais. The Rose Code by Kate Quinn scored well (and is one of the very few book club books I actually bought after reading it from the library.)
Good luck finding one. I like our voting method–nobody can take the blame if the book turns out not to be popular.
Thanks, Terry. Our bookclub and yours have similar tastes. We’ve read The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See and The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn. I won’t choose one of those authors to avoid being too focused on one writer, but Suspect looks interesting. I just checked out the ebook from the library.
Thanks for the suggestion!
When I finished graduate school in literature, I swore to myself I’d never finish a boring or bad book. As a writing teacher who also was a go-to for dozens of writing contests, I didn’t totally follow through, but books for fun have no such protections. Into the digital unfinished pile it goes. Some books are so bad I can’t turn away because we all love a good train wreck, and it gives me fodder for my writing blog.
One thing to remember is a good book has to be a good book for its genre. A book can be brilliant but stinks as a mystery. For years I tried to break into the category romance market until I finally realized I couldn’t write them. I rewrote several of them and won major awards and five-star reviews as standard romances.
Thanks for the reminder that genre matters. I’ve followed a formula someone presented years and years ago. Take the number 100, subtract your age, and that’s how many pages you “owe” the author.
A book that my on-line book club seemed unanimous in liking (loving, really) was Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. One of the POVs is an octopus stuck in an aquarium, another is a 70-year-old woman who cleans the aquarium at night. The 3rd POV is a guy in his mid-20s who is really obnoxious at first, but evolves. Personally I really enjoyed it as well.
Our book club liked that one, too. (Although I kept wondering why the author never mentioned that the octopus actually had 2 eyes. Bugged me.) Another one we liked was Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus.
I had a long laundry list of things that make me stop reading – or never start – but I’m abandoning it in favor of requiring one thing: that there be a main character I can empathize with, sympathize with, care about.
I got through, as an exercise, the first chapter of A Confederacy of Dunces – a Pulitzer prize winner, and one with a good background story. It was brilliantly written – and turned my stomach with every line. I could not even consider spending another minute with the characters.
I read stories to be someone else, and live their life, for a while. I have to be able to BE them – even if we are completely different – for the length of the story, so I can understand their choices and their goals.
For me, it’s the same when I’m writing: I CHANNEL the pov character in a scene. I may disagree with the decisions and aims they have, but I have to understand how it all makes sense to them – because that is the experience I want to give my own readers.
Excellent points, Alicia. I sometimes get feedback from one of my critique partners that she doesn’t like a particular behavior from a character in a scene. But characters, like real people (Oh wait! Did I just imply characters aren’t real people?) don’t always behave the way we would in any given situation. I consider her comments, but feel no obligation to have my characters go along with her thoughts. Unless they tell me they agree with her.
Late night as usual.
One point of information is that a book doesn’t have to be new to have “it”.
One of my pleasures is inter libray loan and I just got a book all the way from the North Carolina State Library at no charge. It’s a true crime story published in 1974 entitled To Drop A Dime by Paul Hoffman and Ira Pescznick and it is the story of a mafia hitman who turned informer, kinda like a proto Sammy Gravano.
So I picked it up and started reading and there “it” was:
The story of a payroll robbery that happened across the street from where my father worked for 29 years, and it happened outside the bank he cashed his paychecks at on Frelinghuysen Avenue in Newark, New Jersey.
Now I know I’m going to the very end of it. Who could have imagined?
What a great story, Robert (and there’s no such thing as late here at TKZ). Thanks for sharing.