6 Ways Reading Bad Novels Can Make Good Writers
By Kathryn Craft | September 12, 2024 |
photo adapted / Horia Varlan
Back when I was an arts journalist, a friend who had just read my latest dance review said to me, “I’m sorry you didn’t like the performance. What a waste of time.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. I couldn’t possibly have written about dance for two decades without believing that every opportunity to engage with art—whether or not I “liked” it—is a growth process. Recognizing this in your own life can be a springboard to leveling up your writing game.
The most enjoyable part of your ongoing education as a novelist is having a tax-deductible reason to get swept into a fully immersive story that suspends time and leaves an aftertaste of revelation. Now, though, you’re reading for two. For your inner writer, any warm, fuzzy feelings that remain after closing a novel’s back cover will be secondary to a higher goal: what you might learn from the story, even if it disappointed you.
So before you unwittingly echo some version of the refrain, “I wasted good money/ten hours of my time on this book that I’ll never get back,” consider leaving that complaint to those readers who never push themselves to grow. Writers benefit from reading widely. Period.
Let me count the ways—six of them, anyway, as I’m sure there are more—that you can move a disappointing novel from the “I didn’t like it” column to the “This book was a good teacher” column. I’ve organized the list by complaints that, on the surface, seem justifiable.
1. I refuse to finish—I have to watch what writing I pour into my brain.
To inspire my own novel writing, I tend to read fiction that is more literary than my own. Such image-rich craft jump-starts my imagination and ensures that I’ll stretch to the limits of my capacity. And yet my teaching and developmental editing require that I am conversant with a range of published material along the commercial-to-literary continuum—one can’t expect everyone to write like Toni Morrison. Author Katherine Center (The Rom-Commers) even stopped setting that expectation for herself when she left behind her MFA-inspired literary projects to embrace the contemporary romances that shot her onto the New York Times bestseller list.
To honoring both inner reader and writer, I no longer set aside a novel before asking myself what lessons it has to offer. Why did this story fail to engage me? Why couldn’t I relate to this protagonist? What prose patterns ground on my nerves? What weighed down story movement to the point that setting the novel aside occurred to me in the first place?
2. But it was a New York Times bestseller!
We’ve all heard writers claim that their oft-rejected novel is better-written than the bestseller they just finished. That may well be true. But that disappointing read from the list still has much perspective to offer writers about the industry they hope will one day support them. The hardest lesson is this: Publishing is not a meritocracy. It’s commerce.
These days, it’s rare to find a title that was elevated to the list due to a growing, merit-based swell. Bestsellers are now “made” through advance campaigns publishers employ to safeguard profits after offering the author a substantial, media-attracting advance. Think about it: how else could a title become “an instant New York Times bestseller”—on the day it comes out, no less!—when no one has yet had a chance to read it?
I get that most of us dream of the bestsellerdom that has been bestowed upon another. But their sales success is not necessarily a bad thing for you, as the income from these titles allows the publisher the leeway to offer on titles that will settle in the range known as “what’s left of the mid-list,” where your good book’s sales might prove to the publisher that one of your future titles is worthy of their full-court press.
Did the publisher even “like” this bestseller in question? Maybe not! They simply felt they knew how to sell it. And guess what, they pulled it off! If you too want to sell, set aside your righteous indignation to figure out why this novel came so highly recommended. What are the reviews saying? What can you find that this author did right? What could you do even better? The answers to these questions will undoubtedly advance your understanding of the marketplace.
3. This was nothing like I expected.
Asking why the story didn’t meet your expectations will further deepen your understanding of how books are sold—and why genre determinations are still important. Did the cover mislead you? Did the back cover copy raise the wrong question? In an attempt to grab attention with your opening pages, did the author inadvertently set an expectation for a different type of story?
Each genre comes with preset expectations—when the murder will happen, when the clothes will come off, how tension is maintained, how a greater threat will be exposed—and you need to be well-read in yours. But if you only read in your lane, you’ll be missing out on the chance to learn important techniques from those who use them the most, such as tension from suspense writers, high stakes from thriller writers, interiority from romance writers, what scares us most from horror writers, and poetics from literary writers.
Analyzing how a book misled you will inform your efforts to make good on expectations you raise within your own readers.
4. But women didn’t wear bustles in 1825…
Anachronisms (chronological misplacements) and continuity errors (escaped slaves traveling for weeks through forests lit by continually full moons) happen, and will sometimes slip into a published novel—at which point reviewers from Goodreads to Kirkus will call out the author’s mistakes. This can shake your confidence in an author, but hey—are you going to judge a story of 90K words by the five they got wrong? As a “recovering” (haha) perfectionist who grew up on a lake, I struggled mightily to finish a self-published novel asserting that a canoe was maneuvered through the water with “oars.” Yet if I’d allowed the error to fully stop me, I not only would have missed the cautionary tale about tending to the accuracy my own work, but I would have missed witnessing how to build the emotional thrust of a narrative that had attracted some 10 million readers.
5. I was appalled—I won’t read that filth!
Any writing that elicits such a strong emotion should send us straight to our notebooks to jot down why that was so. Reading stories that push us beyond our bounds of empathy and relatability might not be comfortable, but if the highest calling in fiction is to illuminate that which makes us uniquely human, it stands to reason that certain stories might necessitate showing a character’s inhumanity as well. Consider it this way: if, like most writers, you believe that books should not be banned, why censor yourself before seeing what eye-opening perspective that “offensive” novel might have to offer? Besides, finishing a novel is good karma, especially if you’re writing a novel with an unlikable protagonist who has a revelatory turning point in the second half of your story. Analyze that offending novel for ways you might have made it easier for the reader to hang in there until the end.
6. The production quality was so poor.
Be specific as to what caught your eye. Even traditionally published authors should advocate as best they can for accurate back cover copy, relevant cover and title, and interior design optimized for readability. If your beef is with with sloppy or nonsensical copyediting, it’s worth asking for a new copyeditor. After all, when the day comes that you stand before hosts of witnesses while holding this book, you want to greet them with genuine enthusiasm and pride.
If you will be both author and publisher, you need to sensitize yourself as to how every element of a book’s design contributes to a great reading experience, from typeface and leading (the space between lines) to margin size and paper color. Even if you plan to entrust design to a subcontractor, you, as copyright holder, must ultimately take full responsibility for your novel.
Even though I love a fully immersive novel as much as the next avid reader, I stubbornly resist the notion that any reading is a waste of my time. Loving a novel and learning from it are not the same. When everything seamlessly converges in a novel to support an emotionally satisfying experience, craft has a way of fading into the underlying structures and can be hard to find. Thank the books you haven’t liked for the glaring ways they beg your attention, for they might be some of your best craft teachers.
What lessons have you learned from novels you didn’t like? Care to share those lessons in the comments? Can you think of any other complaints you’d add to this list, from which you ultimately learned a valuable writing lesson?
Kathryn Craft (she/her) is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy. Her forthcoming book, Crafting Story Movement: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward, draws from decades of experience as both a story consultant and a movement specialist/dance critic. Learn more on Kathryn’s website.
[coffee]
Love these positive lessons to learn and read by, Kathryn!
Hugs
Dee
Thanks Denise! Read on!
Hello Kathryn. IMO, you’ve made a good case for how to salvage something of value from reading a disappointing novel. Your list guides us in how to read like a writer, not a non-writer. But:
“I stubbornly resist the notion that any reading is a waste of my time.”
Maybe because I’m old I can’t agree. If time is money, time is also the most valuable thing any of us has. I can’t see much reason to finish a book that doesn’t measure up. No, I can see a reason: to bolster the writer’s confidence by comparison.
I would also respectfully submit that writing coaches and editors are working in terms of a specific goal: to make their clients’ manuscripts more appealing to the market. If a genre writer’s objective is to find an agent, what you recommend makes good sense. But it’s also (again in IMO) somewhat at odds with writing that is fresh, inventive and “new” in some way. True, there’s nothing new under the sun, but I think you know what I mean.
A clear, useful post, and I thank you for it.
Don’t get me wrong—I still have DNFs (did not finish). But before I put the book away, I always ask myself why.
This started with Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, which for me was not assigned reading as it was for the many who consider it their favorite novel. I set it aside three times before I pulled up my big girl pants and finished. But each time I got to page 100, I thought, “Ah, this is why.” I don’t have that copy with me right now, but that was the genesis of this post, which I would write many decades later!
I was the same way with Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond series. I started A Game of Kings three times before I finally made myself keep reading… and then I got to the big sword fight and I couldn’t stop. It was a wild ride from there to the end of the sixth and final novel.
Your post was timely. I’m reading a book now, part of a series, where the plotting is great and the story keeps me reading, but oh my–the continuity errors, the internal monologues (long and repetitive), the arguments between characters (long and repetitive), the speeches (ditto). But in between those, a dynamic and often-twisty story. Still, a lot of bad writing habits, which will send me back to my own writing with a magnifying glass.
Excellent post!
Thanks Sam! 😊
You know what else is a writing education? The slush pile. That is a classroom that many writers do not get to experience, but it an eye opener for interns and young agents who do.
So many manuscripts (you have no idea) and so many ways for manuscripts to fail to engage. It’s not a judgment, just a reminder that the learning curve for effective fiction is long.
The writers who make it are the ones who keep improving, which means learning from others, in all the ways that can be accomplished. Good post.
Oh yes indeedy! I have several friends who’ve interned at agencies, and benefitted from that very education you mention. Lucky me—I tend to get the manuscripts pre-slush pile! But I mean that truly—I have absolutely learned from every struggling writer who has come my way.
One manuscript in particular comes to mind, fairly early in my developmental editing career. It was a political thriller—a genre typical taut with tension—but there is nothing “automatic” about that tension. The author said his critique partners just couldn’t connect with the opening of his story. It was a tough case to crack, as it “read” well enough, but in the end I figured out that there were mulitple contributors: it was part hifalutin language, part too much explanation, part assumption that people understood the historical context, and part too much description. And that was just on the first page.
What a fantastic post, Kathryn. I’ve always believed that no reading or writing is a waste. I read widely due to my many interests and there’ve been just a few books that I couldn’t finish. One of them was Hitler’s Willing Executioners by Daniel Goldhagen (I’ve been interested in the Jewish holocaust since I learned about it when I was 10 yrs old). More than halfway through the book, I simply could not endure it. I still feel ashamed that I couldn’t endure reading what the people lived through. It was just too harrowing. When we moved to SC a dozen years ago, it was one of my books that I gave away (I gave away half of my home library knowing we’d move into a smaller place). But yes, even the tabloids have much to teach us! Thank you.
“Hitler’s Willing Executioners”—wow, that’s a tough perspective. I’d have trouble with it too. I suspect you consumed enough to catch the gist of his argument that regular Germans were culpable in the murder of Jews.
But because I felt the need to learn—even from your bad reading experience!—your comment sent me down an Amazon rabbit hole to see what reviewers said. One said that was an almost lethal reading experience. This next comment was in a three-star review: “It is a tremendously tedious work to get through. I cannot read much at any given time before I must put it down. There is nothing that encourages or calls to the reader to continue. Every page is an enormous tangle of academic taffy that though it may be accurate or factual, does not encourage readers to continue as much it calls on them to endure.” Even reviewers who lauded Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s book, which was based on his doctoral dissertation, spoke of it being terribly repetitive.
So there may have been more than one reason you set it aside.
I’m late to the party, but here is a different POV… I am querying now, and it is hard to stay positive when you don’t hear either a yes or a no. I have been down this read before, and one usually gets SOME response. This isn’t happening now, so maybe the rules have changed. I believe in my work and will never quit. The system is the system, and your post was, as always, full of a positive outlook. Thanks, Kathryn, I WRITE ON!
I’ve got to say, Beth, I too am no fan of the current “if you don’t hear from us…” approach. It’s no way to do business. Without printing out and mailing manuscripts to slow aspiring authors, though, agents are simply inundated. I’d be curious to hear, from someone in the business, the specifics as to how many submissions per month they got in 1984 vs their average this year.
Even a “pass” is a blessing, as it frees you to continue seeking your work’s perfect advocate.
What a great post!
I’m narrow and stubborn. I rarely start a novel in a genre I don’t like, and I don’t feel obligated to finish anything once I’m disengaged. I apply what you’ve said (with which I emphatically agree) to TV.
My wife holds the remote from dinner to her bedtime. I stay up much later. It’s the only time she takes to relax and enjoy something other than her work or hiking, and it’s important together time. As a result, I get to watch a great many shows I would never have chosen. It no longer surprises me how many of them I enjoy. But, as you point out, all of them are education. For the sake of harmony as well as good manners, (I aspire to behave like a gentleman.) when a show dissatisfies me, I keep it to myself.
I acknowledge my narrowness in my choice of books (from which I do learn) but get a great deal of the education you advocate from TV. Thank you for reminding me.
“I’m narrow and stubborn.” Ha! Love the self-awareness, Bob!
Thanks for sharing your TV ritual. It sounds special. My husband can’t handle blood so Call the Midwife isn’t for him, but if he crosses the room while I’m watching he is always pulled into the drama (until he has to look away, that is). So I agree, there is much to be learned about good storytelling on TV.
Hopefully, the reading you do in your own genre spans enough of the commercial—>literary spectrum that it can take care of nurturing your use of language, while keeping you current about the marketplace.
Good post, Kathryn. For “reading as leaning” I like pulp crime short fiction. The genre isn’t big on character development (Andre Dubus III is my go-to guy for that) and the violence can be off-putting, but it scores high for brisk pacing, pithy dialogue, and strong narrative voice.
Sorry. That should be “reading as learning.”
I heartily agree with André Dubus III for character development, Christine! Pulp crime short stories do offer all the useful lessons you mention, with the caveat that if you’re writing long fiction, the “brisk pacing” would need to be modulated for the long haul.
Awesome, as usual, Kathryn. I do beta reads for a beta-reading service and it is definitely a lesson in what works and what doesn’t. I was asked what was my preferred genre, and I chose Women’s Fiction, but I’ve been given mysteries, thrillers, historical, romance. I feel like (I hope) the experience has made me (and continues to make me) a better writer.
That’s a great opportunity, Densie, and I think you were smart to make use of it. You can’t help but absorb the lessons you are sharing with the writers whose works you are reviewing. We may never get to the place where golden words flow from our fingertips, but we can get quicker at recognizing, in our own work, patterns that weren’t particularly in the work we’ve read.
What a useful way to look at books that aren’t for us, Kathryn! This especially struck me: Writers benefit from reading widely. Period.
I totally agree. It can be thought provoking about what didn’t work for us in the reading.
It’s also similar to an experience I had as an intern many years ago for a literary agency. In that role I read manuscripts the agent was interested in and evaluated them for her. In reading through these stories, many issues jumped out at me that caused me to want to stop reading–repetitiveness, awkward narratives, worldbuilding inconsistencies, confusing plot lines, info dumping, character development, dialogue, no story movement, etc.. And these issues also brought awareness to issues in my own fiction writing. It was a great learning experience! So much so, that I created two presentations from what I learned that I’ve given at many writing conferences and also turned into online Udemy courses.
And so, through this experience I especially learned that … Writers benefit from reading widely. Period.
Thanks for sharing this view with us!
As Don Maass pointed out above, the slush pile offers a great education—and because these were manuscripts in which the agent had expressed interest, your decision-making had to be all the more fine-tuned. Lucky you, Donna, to have had that experience!
This is great advice! I’ve pushed through surprise, disgust, and confusion while reading to discover 1) a genre new to me that had been marketed incorrectly or 2) that a genre keyword did not mean what I thought. There are few things that will stop me from reading, though I will give myself an out if I’m so disgusted by a book that I don’t want to read it anymore. I’ll take notes as to why I don’t like it.
Hi Molly, sounds like your creativity and writing chops will reap rewards from your reading philosophy. Read on!
I personally find not finishing a book an insult to the efforts of the author. I do find that I shift from enjoying the story to becoming an analytical editor, to try and learn about how to “hopefully” improve. In a recent Award winning novel, I joyfully found sixty-four instances of head hopping and now could not tell you the theme of the book.
I would add to Mr. Maass’ point that it seems disheartening to know how so many educational and DNF’d published books forge past slush pile filtering. Could the opposite be true then? Could culling submissions specifically for educational reasons (looking for a winner to engage with) be the problem? Perhaps reading for enjoyment might discover more engagement than reading for results. Just saying. I cannot imagine slogging through endless submissions, though as a teacher I have seen a sampling of a sort.
I worked in publishing for six years and loved “slogging” through endless submissions. Very few were chosen, but that did not take away from the hope of finding great new writers!
And I suspect you absorbed many “do this but not this” lessons by doing so, Anmarie!
Authors everywhere applaud your must-finish philosophy, sam! And I’m right with you: once I switch into editor mode, it gets increasingly hard to connect with the story emotionally, which is key to remembering it.
I’m not quite sure how you are using the word “educational” in this context, but as a teacher, I’m sure you’ve learned plenty about good writing, and how to achieve it, from your students.
Haha! My husband also leaves the room when I watch Call the Midwife! Guess that means they are not the intended audience.
Recently, I had a disappointing experience reading Joan Didion’s novel The Last Thing He Wanted. I loved her memoirs, but this one (early in her career) was so convoluted, the only reason I finished it was I kept hoping “all would be revealed” and it was a short book. I think she was trying too hard.
So yes, read to learn, even if you don’t love the story. I have seen so many ways I could “improve” on a novel just from what I’ve learned taking workshops and reading about writing.
Thanks for this thought-provoking post.
Your husband and mine should meet up for a beer while we get happily lost in the drama, Linda! It is especially hard when an author we’ve previously loved delivers what to us feels like a clunker. We honor their brilliance by insisting we can learn from that work.
And by clunker, I don’t mean “bad”—I mean a book that doesn’t meet our taste, since our reaction to fiction is subjective, or that didn’t sell well, since in the end that is the only objective measure of a book’s success. Even the most successful authors can’t hit it out of the park every time. As Chris Bohjalian—who now has 23 published novels—said when he was in Doylestown for The Flight Attendant, “My career has lasted this long because I don’t let my failures stop me.”