What constitutes “Good Writing” Versus “Bad Writing”?

[kalmia]

I often hear people say they hate when stories have “bad writing” but what exactly does that mean? Wouldn’t something someone considers “bad” be purely subjective and opinion based? What you find to be “bad writing” might be “good writing” to someone else. Or does it go beyond that? What would you consider to be “bad” or “good” writing/storytelling?

[cherrystark]

For me, it's the author's skill. I read a billionaire romance where the MC is written like a real person with feelings. Despite the generic premise, I was hooked. I read the entire novel. Every story she writes has real unique characters. Idc if her work is clichéd romance tropes, the writer is good.

Bad writing, to me, is when a writer thinks their work is gold and won't fix it. Unrealistic characters, weak plot, overdone cliches, etc. You get the idea. With good writing, I don't have to think. I can just read. Bad writing forces me to actively think when I read so I can comprehend it.

[IndigoShirtProd]

Personally, I think good writing is writing that makes sense within the context of it's own universe (for fictional writing) and/or is able to draw out a certain emotion from its consumers and/or is well researched with language that does a good job of informing it's readers.

Writing that doesn't make narrative sense or doesn't convey its message correctly or trips and falls into the whirlpool of plot details are what I would categorize as poor or bad writing. Stories that confuse without intending to are the stories I think are written the worst. If I can't understand what's going on, how can I take on what ever the writer is trying to put out?

Wouldn’t something someone considers “bad” be purely subjective and opinion based?

Yea, for the most part. But it can be hard to deny when a piece of work is falter in its narrative, messaging, or execution if it's plainly to see in the text. Like writing a double standard the narrative goes along with even though the story's message is about equality. That's poor writing to me.

What you find to be “bad writing” might be “good writing” to someone else. Or does it go beyond that?

That's very true, and I'm sure it can go beyond that. I've also found that there are things that have substandard writing that enjoy for one reason or another.

[vapidink]

Well, it depends on whether you mean bad in a technical sense or bad in a storytelling sense, because both are different. A story can be interesting and be written in a technically bad way and the reverse can also be true, so up to a point you're right that whether a book is good or bad is subjective, just like any form of art.

Like, there's all those really cheap romance paperbacks with models on the cover. Those are usually badly written. But the story is entertaining--not necessarily mind-blowing or anything--so it doesn't matter in the end as long as it finds an audience. That audience will probably say it's a good story, because they don't care about the technical bits, just that it entertains them. Then there's books with solid writing that tell a story that just isn't interesting, like a lot of classics people read in school. Personally, I'd rather read something entertaining with sorta shoddy writing than something boring with impeccable writing.

Truly bad writing though is the kind where there's no thought put into it. They're just telling you what's going on without giving depth to the characters, or developing the themes. The kind of story where you're being told the facts of what the characters are doing and where the story is headed, but there's no effort to really tell the story. Or maybe the characters do things and the author doesn't know why they're doing that thing, just that they have to because otherwise the story won't move along. Basically, there's a lot that goes into good writing and good storytelling: plot, characters, tone, pacing, etc.

It's an interesting question with a lot of interesting answers, lol!

[kalmia]

Like, there's all those really cheap romance paperbacks with models on the cover. Those are usually badly written. But the story is entertaining--not necessarily mind-blowing or anything--so it doesn't matter in the end as long as it finds an audience. That audience will probably say it's a good story, because they don't care about the technical bits, just that it entertains them.

Made me instantly think of Twilight LOL. The story is just plain bad if you think about it, but there’s also got to be a reason it blew up and got so huge, basically kicking off an entire genre of Y/A Novels. That made me think, it probably has a lot to do with the target audience as well then. Because surely people who aren’t a fan of romance wouldn’t be as entertained by the story and instantly declare it as “bad” while those who were fans of romance at the time were praising it in a way.

[JoshRaed]

Example one: Flat characterization.

The book Delirium has Lena, a character who.... (does the patrick star trying to order at the Krusty Krab face) and then falls in love. Her love interest is the same. The only difference between them is that one is living under the dystopia and the other is fighting the dystopia. Aside from this neither character has much depth. This also hurts the worldbuilding. We later see the invalids, the people Alex is a part of, and they live in horrible conditions, like these ugly awful slums. And yet we never get a sense of how this made him different. Lena doesn't really seem all that indoctrinated into this system either, aside from accepting parts of it. She doesn't fear falling in love as much as she should, she doesn't seem to think that her feelings are all that harmful, and she doesn't seem to have any negative feelings about the concept of the Invalid.

Example two: bad prose

The book Divergent kept doing this dumb thing where Tris says "It has been months since x. It has been years" which genuinely confused teenage me. Like wait was this really that long ago? I thought it was just a few days ago. Did Tris age up like five years. It's just random hyperbole, hyperbole which really just adds nothing.

Example three: self-indulgent nonsense

There was a dumb wattpad book I read where the protagonist insisted on being called an "intellectual badass", and the his love interest went from being a generic jock to being his equally generic cute himbo boyfriend after five minutes of talking to him, and none of this was treated with Irony.

[BoomerZ]

There is a ton of examples of bad writing from structure to plot. Here are some I see a lot in webcomics.

1. Dialogue that doesn't sound like talking. This goes from saying the name of the person you are talking to (which is an amateur problem of new writers) to repeating the point of the conversation over and over, or pointing out something the character they are talking to already knows.
2. Having no clear story. This I see a lot. I mean A LOT. A setting is not a story. It is where your story takes place. Too many stories have a character, a setting, and then they look for a story. That is the wrong way around.
3. Telling not showing in a visual medium. If you are drawing a comics, show stuff, don't tell.
4. For novels I see people now using the English structure to write while writing in english. I get it if you are using google translate as it's not your first language. But putting different dialogues from different people in the same paragraph is not correct.

Good writing falls under some of these:
1. Have a story with your ending already figured out so you can write to it. The plot doesn't get lost.
2. Dialogue that is spoken in short bursts. People don't talk in monologues.
3. Characters that make the story interesting. The story is king but the characters add to the plot by acting in ways to make you want to read it.
4. Structure wise, treat every episode like a contained story that leads to a larger story. It's a small arc of the over all plot. Something has to happen every episode. No fillers.

[vapidink]

Well, Twilight supposedly started off as a fanfic and a lot of fanfic writers throw in tropes that they know people like to read. It's actually funny just how good fanfic writers are at picking up on what's hot and what's not and working those things into their stories to get more reads. So, you could say that Twilight was made to be popular from the start. It hit all the right points for its audience and it knew what its audience was. I never liked the book though, tried to read it out of curiosity and noped out two chapters in.

[JoshRaed]

Wait what was twilight fanfic of?

[vapidink]

Supposedly, it was an HP fanfic, but Meyer usually says the story came to her in a dream nowadays. And then Fifty Shades of Grey started out as a Twilight fanfic.

[Nugtown]

It depends on how well the authors intentions are communicated to the reader, and if they don't do that well, then we can confidently say the writing has failed in those ways and they have things to work on.
This also applies to visual art and is my go to metric- when you create anything, your intentions go out to the world. If it's bad, but that's how you want it to be, then I can't say this way or that whether the limbs should look broken or not as that's how it was created to be. If someone wanted to do a study of the David statue, and his legs are twice as short as they need to be, well sorry to say you've got work to do.

[HGohwell]

Most obvious, you've got the basic things like constant typos and bad spelling (we can all be forigven one or two but constant without purpose) or a basic lack of understanding sentences and structure of writing prose. I understand different countries do it differently, but if you're writing in English you're being judged on English standards. Grammar can be a little more tricky, since as long as the grammar isn't making it hard to read, there's a lot of room for imporper placement to give your sentence the rhythm and flow you want (as with all things, know the rules before breaking them). Constant repetition, awkward dialogue (when not meant to be), a lack of internal consistency beyond one or two minor mistakes.

Trying too hard to make your character cool often leads to bad writing in the sense that your prose tries to tell me your character is a badass girl boss while I'm reading her committing war crimes and behaving like a sociopath. A lack of awareness in your own writing, I guess. There's nothing wrong with writing a characer who's a sociopath and committing war crimes, as long as you're aware that's what you're doing (it's the 50 Shades probablem, there's nothing wrong with writing a toxic relationship, the problem is thinking it's romantic and selling it as such). Or relying too much of stereotypes (I remember an author who's who to write videos have been shared around here on the forums wrote all her background men as crude abusive rapists who treat women like dirt and when asked why given she recommends not doing so in her writing advice she said something along the lines of "have you heard men talk? that's how they are".)

I think bad writing is generally a little harder to find than ok writing vs good writing. Most writing is fine. It gets the story across and you only notice it's actually not great when you put it next to something good.

[darthmongoose]

I think there are a lot of elements to "bad writing", which can make it hard to define. Somebody can actually be really good at some elements of writing and still be perceived as bad, or be bad at some but still gain a huge audience.

Bad English: The spelling, punctuation and grammar is bad. This is the easiest one to spot. Misspellings or typos, misuse of English words, mixing up tenses, that sort of thing. This is the type of bad writing anyone can spot... which sadly kinda makes it the only bar a person might need to clear to become a professional writer. If somebody is confident enough and knows the right people, they can schmooze their way into the industry while being bad at basically every other facet of writing. That said, it still pisses me off when somebody it tooting their own horn about being a writer, or complaining that Tapas won't feature them, or an artist won't work with them, while being absolutely terrible at basic English.

Bad Style/Voice/Tone: The writer may write in perfectly readable English (or not), but doesn't use the tone of their writing effectively to get across with right mood or personality. They'll do things like writing Fantasy Adventure story with the formal, stilted tone of an instruction manual. "The reason the man who was wearing the black coat was after me was because I am a mage. A mage is a person who can cast magic. I am not afraid of the man in the black coat, however, because I have set up magical defences, which are called 'wards', around my house." Or they'll write in a casual tone, but then have literally every single character speak this way, regardless of age, or what their personality is meant to be like. A weaker form is that the characters kind of have different voices, but they all make exactly the same sorts of jokes or quips.

Honourable mention: Unsuitable tone. The person writes perfectly, and nails a certain tone of voice, but is incapable of, or unwilling to, change their tone at all for the intended audience. This isn't technically "bad writing", but it can stop a "good writer" from getting work or seeing success. I feel like this can cross the line into bad writing when the person is literally incapable of telling a good story or expressing themselves without using a vocabulary suitable for ESL speakers or children. If you can write rambling literary poetry like James Joyce, but you couldn't write a basic social media post, explaining in simple language, but with sensitivity and a positive tone, that due to a company screw-up that inconvenienced customers, you're giving everyone a voucher for one free chocolate bar, you're not a bad writer, but you are a limited one.

Bad Structure: The writer sets things up that seem important, but never has them pay off, and then has the actual outcome of a conflict come completely out of nowhere as an unforeseen deus ex machina. They start their stories in scenes that don't clearly seem to be leading into the plot, and then the characters meander around, often going back and forth, or doing repetitive things. There are frequently scenes that don't seem to be going anywhere, or where the characters encounter a dead end that adds nothing. The ending will come very suddenly and out of nowhere, with no sense of rising tension. Pantsers are obviously the most prone to bad structure. It takes a truly talented pantser to make it seem like they're not obviously making it up as they go along.

Lack of novelty/creativity/sincerity: I don't necessarily think this is "bad", but it's rather a thing that will stop work from ever crossing the line to be "great". A lot of people call this "bad writing", so I feel the need to mention it, but it's more just like... mediocre writing? The writer really liked a certain anime and they just copied basically everything from that anime, but made the protagonist kind of a self insert, or the writer was paid to write a romance novel about mermaids to cash in on a mermaid trend and just followed all the beats from "Romancing the Beat". These things can be really popular, or might really appeal to somebody who's really just there for the tropes, so it's hard to necessarily call it "bad"; the writer did successfully write a complete story that people enjoy after all... but also it's not exactly....great either. Often described as "soulless".

Bad Representation/World-Building: The writer hasn't even bothered to do research, hasn't even tried to create a world for their story with any kind of consistent internal logic, and so creates a story in which everything that falls outside of their own personal experience is based on lazy archetypes, tropes or stereotypes. These bad writers are often the most annoying to criticise because they get so offended when called out, and point to older works of fiction which were full of lazy stereotypes and nobody minded, and it's like, welcome to the twenty-first century; people have social media now and so unlike writers in the past, who could insult a group of people and never hear about it, now there are serious consequences for being lazy.

[NickRowler]

This goes from saying the name of the person you are talking to (which is an amateur problem of new writers)

People do this because they want to establish the characters names in a more organic way without doing name tags or stopping the plot for two characters who already know each other to say “Hi, my name is…”. It’s also helpful in serialized stories where readers may not read or have access to volume 1.

When it comes to bad writing,
I think it’s people mostly frustrated with the dialogue.

I think poor story structure also often gets labeled as bad writing. Like when you have a set up but no pay off. Or when something happens with no foreshadowing or build up. Or characters do things without motivation. Like if you have a romance story with a third act break up but you don’t probably establish justification for the break up, it might end up frustrating readers.

I have also seen people label things bad writing solely because they didn’t like it. Maybe they found it too cliche or it’s not their cup of tea. I think people like to have justification for their opinions. Sometime you need to be careful about taking advice from these types of people. Sort of think, Kaa was made evil in Disney’s version of the Jungle Book because they believed snakes had to always be the bad guys.

[NickRowler]

I think she said Twilight had parallels to Romeo and Juliet. I think that’s why there was a lot of family vs family drama with the vampires and werewolves. As well as the weird self-harm stuff.

And I guess Pride and Prejudice was also an inspiration for her.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Wouldn’t something someone considers “bad” be purely subjective and opinion based? What you find to be “bad writing” might be “good writing” to someone else.

Yeah, as people have mentioned here, I do think there are some pretty 'universal' criteria for writing quality. I guess teeeechnically someone might prefer a story with a deus-ex-machina resolution that comes out of nowhere vs a story whose resolution follows from what it built up, all else being equal? I wouldn't take a bet that I could find such a person though, even at 1000-to-1 odds :'D

People do this because they want to establish the characters names in a more organic way without doing name tags or stopping the plot for two characters who already know each other to say “Hi, my name is…”. It’s also helpful in serialized stories where readers may not read or have access to volume 1.

I think a marker of good writing though is the ability to come up with solutions to those kinds of problems without compromising naturality of the dialogue and other stuff that can kill immersion. It might not be bad writing, but not-doing that is definitely better writing