I suppose my scale for "good" vs. "bad" in erotica would be the same as for any book.
Criteria in my head for a "good" book:
Is it actually well written technically, including spelling, grammar, etc.? Has it been well researched? Are the characters three dimensional? Is is well written story-wise, with a tight and/or engaging plotline? Is the author confident in their story (no lazy tropes, cliffhanger endings that don't need to be there, no use of any other transparent tricks often used by visual media to "hook" viewers, etc.)? If the author did make an error somewhere--poor research, lazy trope, lost plot thread, etc.--is the rest of the book good enough that it's strengths outweigh it's weaknesses?
And, importantly, even if I don't like the content myself, can I look at what was written and admit that the author knew what they were doing writing-wise?
If so, there you have it, it's a good book.
This is outside if I personally like the book, because there is a huge difference between a good book, and a book that is good for me. Books that are good for me can sometimes be very bad books, or have problematic elements, or be written poorly. That's fine, really, because there is no reason but snobbery why everything we enjoy has to meet certain high bars. I don't know about you, but I know I enjoy my junk food far too much.
I don't think it's fair to judge a book--good or bad--solely on if I'll enjoy reading it, because there are a ton of excellent authors out there writing stories that, quite frankly, hold no interest for me at all. That doesn't make their writing bad, it just means I'm not interested. The same goes for well written books with kinks I'm not into.
This is also outside of if a book sells well. I think every book has a home with someone, even the bad ones, and sometimes the worst books have a home with millions. That, to me, makes it a good seller, but still a bad book. And there's a lot of reasons a book may sell well that have little to do with quality, so I try not judge a book by whether it sold millions of copies or nearly none at all.
For erotica in particular I also add one very subjective personal barometer--managing audience expectation. This is where I see far too many of the erotica/porn (and lets be honest, sometimes it's hard to tell which is which) and a surprising number of romances fall down.
I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in subverted expectations when reading. And I'm not talking about the twist ending or the heel-face-turn character, or the "I didn't see that coming" moment. No, it's more...I suppose it's more like the author set out to write one book, but ended up writing another.
It's when everything on your journey thus far had you expecting...say, a steamy steampunk, or a light romance, or a butt-kicking adventure with a lot of kink squeezed in, or even wall to wall sex and not much else. Then suddenly the author hares off down some oddball side path, and that steamy steampunk becomes heavy on the adventure while the steamy bits all but evaporate, or your butt-kicking adventure becomes one prolonged bedroom scene and not much else, or...you get the idea.
And I'm not talking about the books that are written so lopsidedly badly that you stop about a chapter and a half in and...I dunno, go bake a cake or something. No, I'm talking about the enjoyable ones, the ones that draw you in wide-eyed, and you spend the whole thing going; "Okay, they're going to tackle all that now. ...no? Then...now! ... Well, how about now?" until by the end you're nuts with the waiting and grumpy that what looked like a solid part of the plot turned out to be merely window dressing, despite the fact you otherwise enjoyed the read.
It can be a problem in all genres, but I have noticed it to be especially prominent in erotica and, sometimes, romances; or at least I personally trip across it in these genres a lot more.
So yeah, managing audience expectation is part of my personal criteria for all books, but especially for these books. And I suppose it should subtitle under technical aspects of writing, but often as not I have found genuinely well written books doing this. Plus it can be quite subjective, so I don't think it'd be entirely fair to lump it with more easily provable issues like dropped plot threads or bad characterization.
So that's my totally long-winded answer on this. Probably more than anyone wanted to know.
Criteria in my head for a "good" book:
Is it actually well written technically, including spelling, grammar, etc.? Has it been well researched? Are the characters three dimensional? Is is well written story-wise, with a tight and/or engaging plotline? Is the author confident in their story (no lazy tropes, cliffhanger endings that don't need to be there, no use of any other transparent tricks often used by visual media to "hook" viewers, etc.)? If the author did make an error somewhere--poor research, lazy trope, lost plot thread, etc.--is the rest of the book good enough that it's strengths outweigh it's weaknesses?
And, importantly, even if I don't like the content myself, can I look at what was written and admit that the author knew what they were doing writing-wise?
If so, there you have it, it's a good book.
This is outside if I personally like the book, because there is a huge difference between a good book, and a book that is good for me. Books that are good for me can sometimes be very bad books, or have problematic elements, or be written poorly. That's fine, really, because there is no reason but snobbery why everything we enjoy has to meet certain high bars. I don't know about you, but I know I enjoy my junk food far too much.
I don't think it's fair to judge a book--good or bad--solely on if I'll enjoy reading it, because there are a ton of excellent authors out there writing stories that, quite frankly, hold no interest for me at all. That doesn't make their writing bad, it just means I'm not interested. The same goes for well written books with kinks I'm not into.
This is also outside of if a book sells well. I think every book has a home with someone, even the bad ones, and sometimes the worst books have a home with millions. That, to me, makes it a good seller, but still a bad book. And there's a lot of reasons a book may sell well that have little to do with quality, so I try not judge a book by whether it sold millions of copies or nearly none at all.
For erotica in particular I also add one very subjective personal barometer--managing audience expectation. This is where I see far too many of the erotica/porn (and lets be honest, sometimes it's hard to tell which is which) and a surprising number of romances fall down.
I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in subverted expectations when reading. And I'm not talking about the twist ending or the heel-face-turn character, or the "I didn't see that coming" moment. No, it's more...I suppose it's more like the author set out to write one book, but ended up writing another.
It's when everything on your journey thus far had you expecting...say, a steamy steampunk, or a light romance, or a butt-kicking adventure with a lot of kink squeezed in, or even wall to wall sex and not much else. Then suddenly the author hares off down some oddball side path, and that steamy steampunk becomes heavy on the adventure while the steamy bits all but evaporate, or your butt-kicking adventure becomes one prolonged bedroom scene and not much else, or...you get the idea.
And I'm not talking about the books that are written so lopsidedly badly that you stop about a chapter and a half in and...I dunno, go bake a cake or something. No, I'm talking about the enjoyable ones, the ones that draw you in wide-eyed, and you spend the whole thing going; "Okay, they're going to tackle all that now. ...no? Then...now! ... Well, how about now?" until by the end you're nuts with the waiting and grumpy that what looked like a solid part of the plot turned out to be merely window dressing, despite the fact you otherwise enjoyed the read.
It can be a problem in all genres, but I have noticed it to be especially prominent in erotica and, sometimes, romances; or at least I personally trip across it in these genres a lot more.
So yeah, managing audience expectation is part of my personal criteria for all books, but especially for these books. And I suppose it should subtitle under technical aspects of writing, but often as not I have found genuinely well written books doing this. Plus it can be quite subjective, so I don't think it'd be entirely fair to lump it with more easily provable issues like dropped plot threads or bad characterization.
So that's my totally long-winded answer on this. Probably more than anyone wanted to know.
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