How can you tell a novel is good?

With regard to the accomplishment discussion, I would say that what qualifies as an accomplishment depends on the individual. I help teach a martial arts class. There are students who, you show them a forward roll and they can immediately do one. For them, a forward roll isn't much of an accomplishment. There are other students who struggle to get the mechanics of a forward roll down. For them, doing a forward roll is something to be celebrated and a source of personal pride.

Comparing the spectrum of published books, which indeed have a vast range in subjective quality of writing, structure, continuity, etc., to novel manuscripts that will never see the light of the publication moon is irrelevant. Those unpublishable things all go in a big pile for which judgment of quality is pretty meaningless.

The question posed in the title thread is what? How do I tell if my novel is good?

First, get it through the publication gate. That automatically qualifies it as "good enough". After that, it's up to readers to judge further, not the writer.

caw

blacbird said:

Comparing the spectrum of published books, which indeed have a vast range in subjective quality of writing, structure, continuity, etc., to novel manuscripts that will never see the light of the publication moon is irrelevant. Those unpublishable things all go in a big pile for which judgment of quality is pretty meaningless.

The question posed in the title thread is what? How do I tell if my novel is good?

First, get it through the publication gate. That automatically qualifies it as "good enough". After that, it's up to readers to judge further, not the writer.

caw

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You seem to think that writing quality is kind of like Schrodinger's Cat, an unknown value until it gets published. It's certainly true that no one but you and your small circle of beta-readers/friends/family is ever going to assess the quality of an unpublished manuscript, but if a book proves good enough to publish, then it was good before it got published: the act of publishing did not make it good.

So, is there any way to evaluate whether your writing is good without getting published? That's a lot harder. You'd need external opinions from people who you can trust to be unbiased and who know what they're talking about, and there will never be an absolute litmus test.

But your metric is very simplistic. I mean, I've said before that any book good enough to be published can be published (not necessarily "will be published"), but to say no book is good until it's published implies that there is no measure of quality beyond selling.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. I think you would know how good it is if it's something you can't stop thinking about, ie your characters can never leave your head etc. Then of course ask for beta readers to read it, or acquaintances because if they are begging for the next chapters, you know you have them hooked. otherwise, I'm not saying it's bad, but you'd probably have to make changes.

For me, it's when the plot is interesting enough that I want to find out what happens but also the writing is good enough where I want to go back and give paragraphs or sentences another read.

Amadan said:

if a book proves good enough to publish, then it was good before it got published: the act of publishing did not make it good.

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No, but the "act of publishing" (assuming it was not via a standard publishing procedure, not PA or some other vanity press) confirms that it is, at least, "good enough". Otherwise you can go out into the deep dark forest and read your masterpiece aloud to the trees and squirrels and raccoons and bears and ants and centipedes and spiders and crows, and no recognition of its existence will occur, let alone any judgment about how "good" it is.

caw

blacbird said:

No, but the "act of publishing" (assuming it was not via a standard publishing procedure, not PA or some other vanity press) confirms that it is, at least, "good enough". Otherwise you can go out into the deep dark forest and read your masterpiece aloud to the trees and squirrels and raccoons and bears and ants and centipedes and spiders and crows, and no recognition of its existence will occur, let alone any judgment about how "good" it is.

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I am disagreeing with you that there is nothing between "Published and therefore validated" and "Nobody but you and the trees and centipedes can possibly offer an opinion."

Amadan said:

I am disagreeing with you that there is nothing between "Published and therefore validated" and "Nobody but you and the trees and centipedes can possibly offer an opinion."

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No. What I'm saying is that, sans the klieg light of publication, other opinions don't matter. Publication is validation, to one very significant level.

As for "good" v. "bad":

Good and bad, I defined these terms,
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then.
I'm younger than that now.

-- Bob Dylan

caw

blacbird said:

No. What I'm saying is that, sans the klieg light of publication, other opinions don't matter.

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To you.

Its good if the majority of people (or a very large group of people) think it is good enough for them to spend money on to read. Now how you determine this is more difficult.

Agents and publishers seem better than most at determining whether a book will fit in this category. So if you have their approval then it is likely a good book.

It is a subjective and vague term.

blacbird said:

No. What I'm saying is that, sans the klieg light of publication, other opinions don't matter.

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So, if the opinions of literary agents don't matter, why do publishers work with them? Why do so many publishers insist on only working with them?

I'd always say a good novel is something that has at least some artistic merit and is accessible for the reader.

The art of writing is all about being artistic, is it not?

tko said:

I mean, I have the same doubts. What creates the magic that lifts it off the page?

But try this. Go to Amazon and look at the reviews for some highly rated books. Books maybe you liked. You'll always find a few who absolutely hated the book. If you're like me, you've brought bestsellers on recommendations, and you hated them for what seems like good reason. There is no consistency.

Now read, read, read. You find books you enjoy that violate all the rules. Long flashbacks at the start, pages of descriptions, awkwardness at the sentence level, and they're great. And you'll find books that seem OK technically, but just don't have the mysterious it factor.

It's enough to drive you to drink.

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I totally agree with this. Especially the "drive you to drink" part.

Coop720 said:

I'd always say a good novel is something that has at least some artistic merit and is accessible for the reader.

The art of writing is all about being artistic, is it not?

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not for everyone, no.

quicklime said:

not for everyone, no.

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How not? If you're just writing and not crafting the words, how will it ever be satisfactory.

Otherwise it's not writing, it's just typing, surely?

Coop720 said:

How not? If you're just writing and not crafting the words, how will it ever be satisfactory.

Otherwise it's not writing, it's just typing, surely?

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no, not surely.

You're new here, and new or otherwise, certainly entitled to your opinion, but I don't consider the art of writing to invariably be about being artistic; sometimes it is about just telling the story, simply.

If you wish to equate that to "just typing" have at it, but not everything needs to be wrapped in metaphor, and I don't consider a simple sentence to be terribly artful, despite the fact it takes some folks a long time to master them.

quicklime said:

no, not surely.

You're new here, and new or otherwise, certainly entitled to your opinion, but I don't consider the art of writing to invariably be about being artistic; sometimes it is about just telling the story, simply.

If you wish to equate that to "just typing" have at it, but not everything needs to be wrapped in metaphor, and I don't consider a simple sentence to be terribly artful, despite the fact it takes some folks a long time to master them.

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Yeah, I agree that many stories are best left 'told', but even though they are simply stated, it doesn't mean each sentence isn't crafted by the writer. Artistry doesn't necessarily require a hundred linguistic techniques. A rose is a rose is a rose.

Coop, quicklime, "Art" is a pretty generic term, so both of you could be right--Einstein called the stars art, Mozart called music art, and my hairdresser calls my dye job art. Other people call it science, instruments, and hair. That doesn't mean that they can't be just as good at what they do as Einstein, Mozart, and Chadd, my awesome hairdresser. They might simply prefer to look at what they do a different way. Art is WAY too complex to define. It's a personal decision whether or not you consider something "art." I don't consider splatter paint to be "art," but there are plenty of modern museums out there who do!

As for a published novel being the judgement of "good"... I'm going to have to disagree here. I've seen plenty of books that I consider lousy on the shelf. In my mind, the individual reader is the only one who can define if a book is "good"--and that is only their judgement. Another person may think it's "bad," and so it's a "bad" book to them.

One of my favorite trilogies is the cheesiest, most Mary Sue, most poorly written hunk of words I've ever read... but I enjoy it, like a dirty pleasure. I've read it a dozen times! One of my least favorite books begins with the words "Call me Ishmael" and bored me to tears with its deeply philosophical chase of a sea mammal that came off as unrealistic as Jaws. The world considers this a good book, but I don't. I know someone who thinks the Harry Potter books are crap and that the Hunger Games trilogy is laughable. But obviously some people like them, 'cause they sold like crazy. So are they good, because some people like them, or bad because some don't? There's no straight answer to the question "is this a good book?" It's an individual decision and, unlike an election, having more votes on one side or the other doesn't necessarily win the title of "good" or "bad". Take "War and Peace" for example. Literary masters tell us this book is golden... But if you forced all of America to read this book today, do you think it would get more "goods" or "bads"? With our nation's attention span, I'm pretty sure it would be graded as the latter.

In my mind, only you can decide if your book is good. Ask yourself, do I love this book? Even if it never gets published, will I enjoy it ten years from now when I sit down to read it? Is it something I love? Does it make me proud to hand it to my friends? Do I wish there were other books out there like mine?

If the answer is yes, then your book is good and it was worth writing, if only for the joy YOU will get out of reading it. And it may have a chance at getting published, no matter how other people judge it. Hell, some VERY popular books out there (*coughcoughsparklesandfangscoughcough*) would likely have been discouraged by many on this forum. A few people would have loved them and the rest would have said they were unpublishable and needed at least fifteen re-writes. But they got published. Why? Because what they wrote was what that agent or publisher had a taste for at that very moment (or realized their target audience had a taste for them).

My best advice: Worry less about being "good" and write for the joy of writing. I CANNOT guarantee that I will ever be published, but I CAN guarantee that I can write a story good enough for me to enjoy. If nothing else, I will always have that.