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What makes an author "bad"?

Drakon

Drakon

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It's become a common phrase: "[name] is a bad author."

But have we as writers, authors, critics and readers ever considered what makes a bad author?

Is it bad attitude, bad storytelling, poor mechanical aptitude or a combination of the above?

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For me, a bad writer and a bad author mean two different things.

A bad writer is someone who has problems with the technical side of storytelling. This can be anything from poor grammar skills to poor plot construction.

A bad author is someone who has acceptable, above-average or even excellent mechanical and technical skills in storytelling but they espouse repellent views in their story, lack subtlety in delivering a message or they treat their fellow authors and commentators with no respect.
 
In my eyes a bad author does not take criticism well, and refuses to listen to feedback, continuing to write what they believe is the best story in the world, when it is riddled with plot holes, cliches, and grammar and spelling errors. Whacking viewers over the head with message or their personal beliefs optional
 
I always felt that a bad writer constructs plots poorly but that dosn't mean that being bad means that your grammer sucks like me. Grammar skills on my part(or if you noticed by now)is fairly poor but I can tell great story's that usually has a way of putting up in the person mind what I want them to think and in-vision. Basically, my stories might have bad grammar for the most part but the person reading it can "see" my story in their minds if that makes any sense.

If you storys can be "seen" in the mind, then you're on your way on becoming a great writer!(How I think about it)
 
I'm not sure I get the idea where putting personal viewpoints into a story automatically makes it or the author a terrible one. If that were the case, every story or author would be, because what's normal to us is contrary to other cultures' viewpoints on how things should be done.

Being obnoxious about it would be bad, I guess, but the mere idea is not.
 
The two words of writer/author doesn't make a big different in its meaning, as one is used generally to depict the non-professional, and another is used generally to depict the professional. But when it comes to fanfic which is a category of writing works that never ever considered as professional works, can we called ourselves as professional, even we have professional writing skills?

IMO, a "bad" writer/author is writer/author that alienate his/her reader.

To consider it down to earth, if a reader branded a writer "bad" simply by disliking one's work, then every single whatever writer that does whatever writing work will be "bad", because there just doesn't exist any piece of writing that is liked by all of its reader. You can please the majority, but there always exist some minority that will stay disliking one's work no matter how good the work is.

So, in my point of view, a writer is bad if he/she continues to displease the reader by the content of his/her work, such that reader doesn't want to return to read works of this writer even if a different new work is done.

And here comes the technical question of: What makes a work so bad that readers doesn't want to return and to reread? Anything is possible. Grammar, writing style, scene descriptions, character designs and characterization, story plot and overall flow, background world setting, concept of the story itself, or maybe other things. But there is one thing I think that is just universal between all the "bad" works, which is -- they are not improving, oppositely in most cases they are worsen when story progress further.

It doesn't matter IMO that a writer started out as a novice, begin a fic so bad like a crack fic filled with Mary Sue characters. If he/she can improve his/her skill as a writer, show such improvements by fixing the mistakes and compensate the previous mistakes with a better written new chapters and/or new works, able to maintain the readers' interest not by pleading to the readers, but by the mere quality of his/her work, then such writer is not "bad" writer at all.

Oppositely, even if a writer is so creative that he/she can imagine a noble idea that no one can do, start a story in a very nice and plausible manner that everybody is looking forward into it as it got so much potential where it may come out as an excellent work, but the writer cannot utilize the established background settings and materials, wasting all of them by pulling a irrelevant and/or implausible story, or even the writer's basic writing skills and literature knowledge undergoes deterioration which it reflected directly onto his/her work, then such writer is worthy enough to be deemed as "bad", even he/she started out as good.
 
I figure it's bad when you make mistakes that were easily avoided-- that's why glaring spelling and grammar errors are such big red flags, they're solved with an f7 spellcheck or a simple once-over proofread.

So, similarly, yeah: if someone refuses to take feedback and critique under advisement, that plays into that. Of course, not all critique is good (I mean, people will often tell you to do something that compromises your story), and you might be doing something that seems amateurish to a reader, but have a good reason for doing it (for example, narrating in second-person). When your reviewer or critic has less skill or knowledge than you, of course you don't haveto heed their advice. You never have to heed someone's advice. But I can't think of a time when it's not wise to at least consider it.
 
A bad author, in my opinion, is not an author that makes mistakes - obvious or otherwise... It's the author that refuses to listen to criticism and learn from those mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect... What errors prove is that you are human, like everybody else. Ask all the best authors in the world (and those here on BMGf too) and I'm sure they'll tell you they made hundreds or thousands of mistakes when just starting out.

It's when you refuse to fix those mistakes... to listen to constructive criticism and improve yourself... that's what constitutes a bad author.

Remember that Rome wasn't built in a day... and neither is our (yes, mine too) skills as writers.

This is exactly why feedback is very important. Because if 100 people read a story, but no one gives feedback, an author can not improve his skills.

As for spelling, most modern word processors have spell checks (As do many web browsers)... so unless you are using Notepad or similar, you really have no excuse for spelling! The only exception to that, naturally, is pronouns from franchises like Pokemon which are naturally not in the dictionary.
 
Writers that don't react well to their feedback bother me a lot, and I'd consider those bad writers. It's one thing to disagree with the feedback you've been given, but it's another to be outright rude about it. We all make mistakes, yes, but we should learn from them and fix them for future stories. Maybe you might not learn from all of them at once, but if you have a consistent issue with characterization, you should fix that instead of continuing to disregard the people criticizing your story. I'll read the work if I have no interest in it and you ask me to, but if you refuse to listen to the advice I give you, then I'm just going to end up giving up because I'm going to feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. Take your feedback and learn from it.

Also writers that are just too lazy to spell/grammar check their work when they absolutely know there's issues with it in their story. It's one thing to feel confident enough in your spelling/grammar to not check at all; some people feel that way, and that's okay. When you know you have issues with it and you post it, nope, done. Not even going to bother. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.
 
It might be a splinter from this topic, but I feel it should be brought up. Not all bad writers, those who have problems with the technicalities of storywriting, are at fault. Many might never get real feedback, or get it so rarely they are unsure how to interpret it. A potentially great writer can be ruined by people who read their work and simply smile and nod "It's good".

A bad Author has no excuse though, a bad Author is someone who gets feedback enough to improve. However they choose to ignore it.
 
I think a bad writer is one who can't put together a coherent story. Whether it's because of bad grammar, lack of structure or focus, or some other reason, a story that makes me think "Wait... what happened again?" is one I will avoid. I don't mean confusing plot... that, I can handle. When places, characters and action aren't described well, I'll lose track of all of them and the story dissolves into a mess.

You could argue that lack of interest in the topic can contribute to someone labeling an author as "bad," but to be honest, I've come into a lot of stories believing I didn't care about what they were about, only to eventually develop a liking for it. If a book is well-written and absorbing, just about anything can be made entertaining. The opposite is also true; you could give me a story based on a video game I really love, but if it was written by a poor author, I won't be able to finish it.

Like everyone else has said, an author that can't handle or doesn't use constructive criticism is a highlight of a bad one. Having your mistakes recognized by others and pointed out to you directly is probably one of the better ways to improve your work, and by heeding others' advice (and not acting like your first draft is gold), you'll be able to eliminate those things from future writings.
 
One point I personally would like to raise is that one can be a writer without actually publishing anything. Sure they can't be a professional author, or anything, but still, technically they write and therefore are a writer. And therefore, this means they may not be exposed to any criticisms or feedback, so they don't have any advice they can either accept or reject. Does that mean they can't be either a good or bad writer? Of course not.

Whether someone is a good or bad writer is contained within their technique and ability, I'd say. Listening to critique can allow one to improve and become better. But not listening doesn't automatically disqualify someone from being able to write well. Sure, they're very unlikely to get anywhere or make any progress but technically speaking it is possible.

I'm being nitpicky here, I'll admit (particularly as the title specified 'author', which I'm defining as someone who has published in some way, shape or form) but still, I felt it was a point worth raising.

I'd say whether someone is a good writer or not is contained in their creativity and the technical ability of their writing. Critique can only really help the latter. Whether someone's good with stories and characters is something inside them, and whether they're a good writer is about how well they can get that out into words. Critique is important to technique, to helping the story manifest itself, but at the end of the day, the story comes from the writer's own creative talent. Or, since this is a thread about what makes a bad author, their lack thereof.
 
I disagree, Kyuubi.

An author can write the worst of fics, poems, whatever and still not be a bad author. Sure, they won't win any awards, but they don't deserve the title "bad" either.

The only ones that deserve the title "bad" in my view are the ones that refuse to listen to advice, that become hostile and rude when criticized.


Every author in the history of man kind has been the first. Those authors can learn from their errors, take advice and maybe a few of them will eventually turn out Bestseller quality work. The rest of my opinion on the matter is contained within post #9
 
Drakon said:
It's become a common phrase: "[name] is a bad author."

But have we as writers, authors, critics and readers ever considered what makes a bad author?

Is it bad attitude, bad storytelling, poor mechanical aptitude or a combination of the above?

-----------------

For me, a bad writer and a bad author mean two different things.

A bad writer is someone who has problems with the technical side of storytelling. This can be anything from poor grammar skills to poor plot construction.

A bad author is someone who has acceptable, above-average or even excellent mechanical and technical skills in storytelling but they espouse repellent views in their story, lack subtlety in delivering a message or they treat their fellow authors and commentators with no respect.
Click to expand...

The distinction between "writer" and "author" is, like you said, quantitative versus qualitative. A good writer is technically sound, with good grammar, sentence structure and variation, never confusing tenses, using language that flows well, etc.
Being a good author is not easily quantifiable in the same way, though, as it's a matter of quality. It's about intangible things like character development, plot pacing, thematic depth, convincing action, consistent voice, showing rather than telling (except when telling is absolutely necessary), balancing description and writing flow (nothing takes me out of a piece of writing like three giant paragraphs of flowery description), and effective use of literary techniques.
It also implies a relationship between the creator and the readers that "writer" does not imply. A bad author not only fails at some or all of the above, but has a poor relationship with their readers. They can't take criticism, or do not evolve in response to criticism. They question the very notion of criticism (see Kevin Smith as an example of a bad author who savages critics because his films are terrible and he can't deal). They get in petty arguments even with people that like their work. They promise things and repeatedly fail to deliver. They deliberately mess with their readers in unfair ways.
Hence, why I consider George RR Martin a bad author. He doesn't fit that criteria if you're just looking at his writing quality, but his writing pace, the way his books relentlessly wreck fan expectations at the expense of telling a better story, and other things he's done make him a bad author in the sense of his relationship with the readers.
 
I don't like to call people bad authors, but for me, a bad author is exactly as everyone else described. I was called a problematic writer once for DARING to write about serious issues for a kids fandom such as domestic violence, suicide, bullying, even r-ape (it wasn't explicit. Only implied, and it fit in the T rating). I was even called sentient trash once, and I got an abusive review from someone yelling about how I shouldn't write about r-ape, how I'm ableist and terrible, how I'm bad for not putting a trigger warning, etc.
 
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