Commercial Bestsellers

I don't have a lot of choice in what I read here in Thailand. The English bookstores only carry the very best of the bestselling (i.e. Harry Potter). Instead, one of my friends and I trade what books we get back and forth. He gets random books that friends in the States find for cheap, and I (for the last few years anyway) get a gift certificate once a year from my sisters-in-law.

Lately my friend has been loaning me commercial bestsellers. These are the books you see in Walmart or Ralphs or the very front of Borders. A lot have been thrillers from authors like Dean Koontz, Robin Cook, and James Patterson. I usually walk right past these on my way to the Sci-fi/Fantasy section, so this is kind of a new genre for me.

I was surprised to find that some of them are very good. I read my first Koontz novel with heavy skepticism, only to find that he writes really well. His imagery is vivid, evocative, and ties together the tones and themes of any given scene.

On the other hand, a lot of these haven't been any good at all. The stories are fine; it's mostly problems with their craft - a lot of telling when they should be showing. A lot of unnecessary "As you know, Bob"-style dialogue. Sometimes the action will stop for a paragraph or two to explain the character's motivations ("Despite the fact that the killer had a gun, Jack got angry. It was a problem he had that went back to his overbearing father..."). In one novel, there was a seemingly-major character who did nothing but sit in his office and answer phone calls that explained various aspects of the plot.

A couple of years ago, I don't think I would've noticed these things, but the more I learn about writing well, and the more I get criticized myself on these very things, the more I realize that these extremely successful authors are getting away with total crap, and getting paid very well for it.

At first I didn't mind. I actually felt good about it. "If they can get published with this garbage," I thought, "then I'll be published for sure!" (How innocent and naive I was). Then, as I earned more rejections and criticisms on my own work, I began to get angry at the double standard.

I'm better now. Though I'm not happy about it, I have accepted that publishing is a business, and these authors sell. On the other hand, this undermines one of the major things that publishers supposedly provide, namely credibility. If I can't trust a bestseller to be any good, how can I trust the midlist?

These authors sell (I think) because of the huge fanbase they've accumulated back when they actually were credible. Those same fans keep coming back because they want more of the same, the familiar - and the fans don't care (or don't notice) that the quality of the familiar has declined.

I don't know what can be done about this, or if anything even should be done. It grates against my sense of rightness, but pretty much all entertainment mediums have the same problem. It's just capitalism at work, really. So the question is what can I do about it?

The only answers I can think of are: (1) don't buy the crappy books and (2) don't let the quality of my own writing go down just because I'm rich and famous. Unfortunately I rarely buy books and I'm not rich and famous, so I can't actually do anything. Not yet.


Elle Scott said...

Your post is excellent. It's so true that many (though, obviously, not all) best selling authors have terrible writing styles. It's also true that we who are aspiring to become writers seem to be held to a double standard. It can be *so* frustrating! What I think is great, though, is that you've learned so much that you can now identify these kinds of sophomoric writing mistakes. That puts you way ahead of other writers! It also means that there is something to be learned from reading poorly written novels.

Adam Heine said...

Thanks, Elle. I just wish it was easier to identify this sort of thing in my own writing. I'm so blind to my own problems sometimes :-)

Hilabeans said...

Nicely done, Adam. However, don't you sometimes wish that you could be swept away, you know, the way you were before seeing things from a technical point of view?

I know I do sometimes...especially after I've purchased the book and realized it's too painful to finish.


Adam Heine said...

I know what you mean, Hilary. I remember seeing all these problems with the Chicken Little movie just after I'd read a book on what makes a story good. And I remember thinking, "Have I just ruined movies for myself forever?"

It turns out I haven't. But my bar has definitely been raised. I'm still not sure if that's better for me or not. If I plan on creating stories, then I guess it's better. Technically.

Pen said...

I totally agree. The more I have learned about writing and the better my own writing becomes the more jarring is the ugliness that passed for good writing in so many books.Sometimes I'm led to wonder how much of it is the writers fault and how much of it is shoddy editing.
I don't know. I suppose it should give us aspiring writers some hope if that is the kind of rubbish that is being produced. Or maybe not?

Anonymous said...

I think another reason that some less-than-stellar books get published is that their plots are so much better than their writing. I recently read a novel that I picked up because the plot synopsis sounded awesome, but the writing could be clunky and the developments sometimes seemed rushed or contrived. It has to do with high-concept ideas, though, I think. Publishers and agents love them because they sell, so unless the writing is terrible, they're inclined to grab onto a book with a catchy plot summary.