Why we like or dislike certain authors

[PaulG]

In an effort to jumpstart a discussion on what has been a somewhat quiet web site these last two months or so, I figured let’s get some blood boiling. As we’ve reached the “dead” of winter maybe the viewpoints generated will also make some of us a bit warmer.

Over time I have noticed in some posts that some of you have expressed quite strong opinions, both pro & con (more often than not), regarding your feelings about various authors. Many times these authors often weren’t even the topic of the post but managed to get slapped around for good measure as the poster had the floor. I am curious as to why these authors are deserving of such hostility. One wonders if the simple fact that they’re published is the reason for many of the negative reactions.

Do the following authors listed fall into this group? I have posted a variety of popular names and personally have not read all of them but typically see them when wandering the stacks at the library and bookstores. This is by no means an all-encompassing list. Some of the names listed have taken a few shots on Wordtrip. By all means, throw in more names if you wish. Most of this mob has quite a quantity of books published and their publishers obviously like them.

James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, Dan Brown, Dale Brown, Patricia Cornwell, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Mary Higgins Clark, Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Ian Fleming, Stephanie Meyer, Danielle Steele, J.K. Rowling, Isaac Asimov, Dean Koontz, Robert Ludlum, Tami Hoag, Joy Fielding, Catherine Coulter.

What makes a specific author more worthy of admiration or rancor than another? Curious and looking forward to hearing why folks feel the way they do.
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[xcheck24]

I'll bite.

The only author's work that I have any opinion about is Dan Brown. I just don't understand the hype. I read a bit of the DaVinci Code and put it down. The writing irritated me. But I don't really hate him or his books or whatever so much as I hate this aura that surrounds him by so many people that he is the greatest author ever. I don't understand it.
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[charlesp]

I suspect the primary reason a popular author receives the ire of those of us on the aspiring side of the equation is a perception on our part that they are poor craftsmen. To chalk it up to just that they are published seems highly unlikely as almost every person on this site is an avid reader and lover of books. We get ticked off when a person like Dan Brown gains fame and fortune (based on books which to us seem to be written by somebody who hasn't taken the time to appreciate the craft of writing) in much the same way a skilled and well trained musician feels some animosity towards a teen pop-star performing mediocre songs they didn't write and making millions. I'm sure there is a bit of jealousy involved, but I think much of it is simply a feeling of disgust at the quality of the work that seems to represent the industry. Another analogy would be the way a chef feels about McDonalds... It's not that fries and a shake aren't a valid option for a meal, but if you're a foodie you don't want to see the kids growing up to think that McD's represents "quality".

For me there aren't a LOT of names on my "I dislike them" list (Brown & Patterson are the main two that come to mind, though I don't appreciate Brian Herbert & KJA's work in Frank Herbert's universe much either)... and I really try and analyze how much of it is a dislike of their authorial style.
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"Coffee is sufficiently advanced technology" - Merlin Mann
One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee." - Wally (Dilbert)

[PaulG]

I like your comparison to McDonalds, Charles. I am sure that a number of these authors have a "formula" which allows them to crank out a lot of work. Also, one must take into consideration today's technology which with word processing capabilities and spell/grammar checking (fodder for another post entirely!) has to speed up the entire process. Let's not forget that a lot of research can be accomplished quickly with the internet.

Xcheck- your description of Brown's writing as "irritating" & Charles position about him as well now makes me want to go back and reread one of the novels to see what you mean. My problem is once I get caught up in a story the only way I would get put off by an author's writing is if he/she changes language.
_________________
...and every now & then I spend my time at rhyme & verse & curse those faults in me...- "Along Come Mary"- The Association
A friend is someone who sees through you and still enjoys the view- Wilma Askinas
Be careful of your thoughts they may become words at any moment. - Iara Gassen

[xcheck24]

I get from a lot of people who say "but it's such a good story!"
That means he's a good storyteller, not a great writer. And people act like he's a good writer. There's a difference to me.

Awhile back I read Donald Miller's "Blue Like Jazz." While I liked the message of the book, I thought the writing was irritating and at times juvenile. I probably would have put it down if I 1. hadn't heard him speak a few weeks earlier and 2. I wanted to bring the book's message to my youth group.
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There's always a bloody ghost.

[timberline]

Well, that's a good way to jumpstart a thread! People have such imperious opinions sometimes you wish they'd go get a lobotomy at Costco. But here's my two cents on why we like certain writers:

1. He/she complements our expectations. Put the Ayn Rand devotees in this camp. Also Kalil Gibran followers seeking insights in their navels. Michael Crichton was heading there when he died and had to account for being an ideologist.

2. We feel all warm and comfortable when we get to the end. That's why I read Jasper Fforde, Audrey Niffenegger, Elmore Leonard, Martin Cruz Smith. Not because they're literary hotshots jamming to take Shakespeare's place in the Pantheon, but for telling a damn good tale.

3. He/she offers a fast-paced escape from the heartache of boredom. There's Dan Brown, of course, champion of sophomoric, cliche-ridden potboilers, but there's also James Patterson, and Tom Clancy (and his scrivener factory). But don't forget the good ones, like John LeCarre.

4. We may come away with a good idea or two, the kind Nathaniel Philbrick gave us with Mayflower and Essex. Jack McDeavitt, Bruce Sterling and John Brunner, spec fic masters, do that for me as well. And don't forget William Gibson or Tom Robbins.

5. He/she offers something beautiful in the writing craft, a good reason to keep going back to William Faulkner, Kurt Vonnegut, John McPhee. Ah, and Elmore Leonard.

There may be more criteria to separate the wheat from the chaff, but I'm going back to rewrite the flash I put up on Flash Fiction Friday yesterday--and believe I'm my own best writer.

Oh, hold on a minute--there's one more. Social networking. I mean, what the hell areDear John and All the Lovely Bones? Are people exercising their lacryma ducts, crying over a good read so they can tell their friends about it? Bonding over their lattes? Feeling their collective hearts thump, describing the best passages? Let's put J.K. Rowling in that camp, but I applaud anyone who can write themselves out of debtors prison.
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[PaulG]

Xcheck, the comment about being "a good storyteller, not a great writer" almost begs a change of direction in the thread.

Can one be a good storyteller and a mediocre writer at the same time? Interesting point.

Timberline- I'll have to try out Elmore Leonard as you reference him as both a good storyteller & master of his craft. I lean towards your third point, I find I read fiction for entertainment. I like to break up my reading patterns that way. Follow up the history of the 1918 flu epidemic with something just a tad more lightweight.

By the way, where does Costco set up the lobotomy departments, hopefully not by the sushi guy!
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...and every now & then I spend my time at rhyme & verse & curse those faults in me...- "Along Come Mary"- The Association
A friend is someone who sees through you and still enjoys the view- Wilma Askinas
Be careful of your thoughts they may become words at any moment. - Iara Gassen

[charlesp]

Pretty sure Costco sets them up next to the zombie sushi guy, keeps business moving right along.

The Storyteller vs Writer thing is an interesting direction for thought (and really what it comes down to for us proto-writers I think). In recent years I've tried to distance my opinions from "they suck!" and move toward "I don't like them" because of this. Trying to appreciate that while I don't like that musician, it's not because they suck, but because what they're trying to do doesn't match up with the reason I'm coming to music/books in the first place.

To keep going with a musical comparison (or running it into the ground as the case may be): Brown & Patterson may be good story tellers (I really haven't been able to set aside the way their writing style/craft annoys me long enough to get into one of their stories), but not great writers, in much the same way as a lot of pop-musicians sell a lot of albums and cause a lot of butts to shake without being good/interesting musicians. There are people on a sliding scale though who can write a catchy tunes who are also doing interesting things with their music. For a lot of people that isn't an issue when listening to music (or reading), but for people who have studied music (or writing) as a craft, they may have a harder time separating the two and really only appreciate the ones who can do both well.

To that end, you'll probably find people who are proto-writers who dish out disdain on the big names they find "less worthy" because they recognize why X is so much better when they're both a good storyteller AND a great writer. For me Brown & Patterson aren't quite good enough with their writing instruments to get me past their writing skills an able to appreciate their storytelling. For some reason I hesitate to put somebody into the following category, but I think somebody like Christopher Moore is a great story teller, and funny writer, but probably is just skilled enough as a writer for me to ignore the writing instrument skill level (he's not doing anything fancy with his writing instrument, but he's playing a great song). Then there are the big guns (and I'll go back to the well here) like Harper Lee's to Kill a Mockingbird, or to take a different path Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko series, where the author is telling a great tale, but doing it with flair and flourish and really having mastered their instrument. I would be remiss if I didn't also list that there are people who have a lot of writing skill, but no storytelling skill, and that they tend to do a lot of literary hand waving (lots of fancy trills and riffs on their instrument) without playing a good song.

Edit: Oh, and I read Blue Like Jazz a few years back and had a similar reaction to it as X did, and only finished it because it came so highly recommended by two friends.
_________________

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C Clarke
"Coffee is sufficiently advanced technology" - Merlin Mann
One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee." - Wally (Dilbert)

[PaulG]

Charles, your comment regarding reading or not reading someone because they don't match up with your reason for reading makes a lot of sense to me and is basically my line of thought as well. If I am not interested in their genre I am ignoring them.

Going back to your music analogy, I have admiration for anyone who can get up on a stage and perform in front of people even if they aren't that good. If they have a bit of talent so much the better and maybe I'll come back to hear again. Same with authors.

If your book or music is published and out there for public consumption, good for you! I may not read or listen but some publisher feels others will, and you have my congratulations. Maybe I'm just too nice a guy.

Without sounding like a complete literary lightweight, what constitutes good writing? Is it quantifiable or more subjective? With editors, spell check functions and the like it cannot be poor spelling/grammar/tense, things along that line. Although as a side note, I see more of these errors on internet articles too frequently, showing a great need for copy editors, which I am sure most sites don't want to pay.
_________________
...and every now & then I spend my time at rhyme & verse & curse those faults in me...- "Along Come Mary"- The Association
A friend is someone who sees through you and still enjoys the view- Wilma Askinas
Be careful of your thoughts they may become words at any moment. - Iara Gassen

[timberline]

Paul, the argument for "good" vs. "bad" writers is eternal. Will there ever be an end to the argument of "good art" vs. "bad"? (Cliche: "My kid can paint better than that!") What matters is the critique you bring to the piece of writing.

Perhaps relevant to the I-like-what-I-see argument is a gotcha critique a friend just gave me: "I think you meant canoli, a sweet dessert, and not cannelloni, a meat-filled noodle. Damn, she was right! But I like cannelloni better than canoli, so there!
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 Cruising the Green of Second Avenue is available at Wild Child Publishing, http://www.wildchildpublishing.com/. More good stuff at http://allotropiclucubrations.blogspot.com

[PaulG]

Timber, good point. This could one could spin around forever. Taste is a factor and always relative.

I like the idea of incorporating Italian food into the thread. Being from the great state of Jersey originally, one would know about both cannoli & cannelloni. I'm with you on that one. I find cannoli typically too sweet. Now sfogliatelle is another thing entirely, the best!
_________________
...and every now & then I spend my time at rhyme & verse & curse those faults in me...- "Along Come Mary"- The Association
A friend is someone who sees through you and still enjoys the view- Wilma Askinas
Be careful of your thoughts they may become words at any moment. - Iara Gassen

[timberline]

Then, there's this thought--and more on if:book (http://futureofthebook.org/blog/)

Jace Clayton quotes an article from The Economist:

A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read "The Lost Symbol", by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it.
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 Cruising the Green of Second Avenue is available at Wild Child Publishing, http://www.wildchildpublishing.com/. More good stuff at http://allotropiclucubrations.blogspot.com

[xcheck24]

My good storyteller vs good writer observation comes from the fact that I work in journalism.

In my industry there are two qualities you want your reporters to have: good reporting and good writing. There is a huge difference. The more important of the two is being a good reporter in journalism. If you're not a good writer, you can get by so long as you're an amazing reporter.

There are few people who are very good at both. Or it takes a long time to be good at both. When I started I was a good reporter and my writing was OK. I honed my reporting skills first because they were more important. And now my writing has improved dramatically since those early days, to the point I cringe when I read some of my older work.

So there's a difference between storytelling and writing. The storytelling is like the reporting. It's important to be able to tell a good story. It'll entertain people. But if you can be a good writer too? You'll win over so many more people.
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[Hissmonster]

I happen to agree with you x. I have seen some articles that, in truth, were mediocre in writing, but they were excellent in informing the reader of the information and were arranged in a way that you did read the entire article.

I am working with someone now that is not a good writer. She is a storyteller. She can captivate and audience by just talking about her life. Not that you would want her life, but you just can't believe it. I've told her that her life is like rubber-necking at an accident. You don't want to look but you just have to!!!

Her story will sell because of that. Not because it was an amazing work of writing, if it is used in classes it will be to show that you can get published without adhering to the conventions of "good writing."

The stories are scandalous and outrageous. It will not appeal to everyone, and will not build her a lengthy career as these scintillating novels are usually fads, but it will sell.

Does that bother me? no, not really. It gives me hope in one way. If her story will sell then first priority is to make sure the story is a good one. The editing process will pull up the writing that and pracitcing. It's like anything we do, the more we practice, the better we get at it.

I read everything, the best sellers and the "when did that get published" hidden gems. I refer to King as a God because he could write the yellow pages backwards in a way that it would be a best seller. I have to give it to him. Is he the best writer ever? No. Does he take way too long introducing characters? Just pick up any one of his books, you can probably skip to chapter 5 to see the plot take off. But, you read him, you buy him and in general he is a satisfying read.

My biggest pet peeve with writers is when they betray their characters. As a writer you invest so much time in developing characters that the reader can identify with and follow. When they make a character do something that they wouldn't just to satisfy the ending of their story, it says to me that they didn't invest enough effort into making the transition. Its those stories that I close the book and say NO WAY!

Those are the authors I won't read again.
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[Anblick]

The good storytelling vs good writing argument will never end. Mostly because people are entertained by good storytelling. And sadly, most people are probably bored by good writing unless it is accompanied by good storytelling.

I will admit I enjoy listening to a novel by a good story-teller, but I also judge them solely on that level because that is for lack of a better term their genre.

Of the several authors mentioned, I think Patterson sucks when he's the actual author, but many of the stuff he puts his name on (I'm 99% sure he doesn't actually write them) is fairly entertaining. A couple of them I've even thought were well written (i.e. "Against Medical Advice"). Dan Brown probably wouldn't be so popular if he hadn't picked such a controversial topic to set his Robert Langdon stories around (how many people realize he has two other books out there that still aren't very good sellers?), but on the flip-side, he told the Langdon stories in an entertaining way.

Me? I prefer King because the characters always seem so real, even if their situation doesn't.

And if a story is extremely well written but it doesn't entertain, who really cares?
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[pengwenn]

As proto-writers (sounds better than wanna-bes) when an author makes a "mistake" it's very jarring to us and stands out more. To the general public who read (however much) but don't intend to write they probably don't notice the error. Here's an example (but no specific text sorry):

My sister and I started reading Grisham's novels in the order that he had written them. While I wasn't overly impressed with the writing I did like the fast paced stories. Until I got to The Pelican Brief. Towards the end of that novel I had had it with all the "coincidences" the main characters found themselves in that got them out of a jam. Then I got to the end and in one paragraph alone Grisham changed the pov character 3 times. I think I had to read that paragraph 10 times before I figured out who was thinking/seeing what. I was so close to the end that I finished but vowed I would never read a Grisham novel again.

On the other hand I love reading Stephen R. Donaldson. He's a great storyteller and a great writer. Almost to the point where I feel I'm not worthy enough to read his stuff. But I'm so happy and a better person/writer for having done so. When I'm done reading his novels I remember the words as much as I remember the story. And I've learned quite a few new words without having to look them up in a dictionary.

While I like King and think he's a great storyteller and a good writer I sometimes find that he can get hung up on the language. I'm not talking about structure or construction but on the words themselves. Ever since he was crowned as a "shock writer" I sometimes feel he chooses words to maintain that shock factor instead of what would more naturally fit in the style/story. A good way to see this is to read one of his earlier novels (like 'Salem's Lot) and then immediately read one of his later novels. The stories are good; the writing construction good; but the language seems to have reverted to 4th grade potty humor where kids say bad words for the shock value when they don't know any better. Sometimes I think he shows more maturity in his earlier works than the later ones.
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[Saphyre]

I'm with Hissmonster: characters all the way. Heck, I read all four books of Meye's Twilight series (some more than once) based soley (SOLEY) on the characters.

Of course, plot and style and lack of typos are important too, but I think that varies by reader more frequently than does the need for good characters. Some people can handle slow action, others need a new conflict every page or two. But characters always matter, it seems.

A good writer is (to me) someone who can express their characters, who knows them enough to put them into the black and white on the page and not loose them. A good story teller (again, to me) is the person who knows what they are doing with those characters.

Just my 2c.
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For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus…
For by grace you have been saved through faith… it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Please always feel free to critique anything I write as I am by no means perfect!

[Anblick]

Wow, we apparently had a totally different take on Meyer's characters, because I thought they were incredibly thin and transparent (seemed like cardboard cut-out characters to me), so I discounted the book from any hint of being character driven. Which further infuriated me that she skipped the climax of the book completely for what I believed to be a plot driven book. I refuse to read anything else by her on that principle (esp. since I found out she skips the climax in most of her stories only to make you buy the next book to find out what really happened).
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