Just tell me – Is this Good?

Choosing what to read is exhausting. I try to expose myself to the literature that’s out
there, so I’ll drive to the bookstore and walk along the long aisle and just browse. But what am I really looking for? What gives a piece of writing that “it” factor, or that “this is good writing” stamp. Is it the author? Does that automatically make a book a good one? Conversely, maybe it’s the genre – after all, most of the writing that we read in school strays from the worlds of goblins and wizards and delves into the more boring real world, the one with all of the social, ethical, moral, and political problems. It could be the content matter – since society has already determined that writing about the Cold War is more
useful that writing about the problems us teenagers faced during high school. It’s none of the above. The answer is that writing is like a conversation between two people whose worth can’t be measured or predetermined by rules. It’s the author and you, and an invisible bridge that’s allowing ideas to drift up from the paper and into your mind. What affect those ideas have on you, whether good or bad, profound, or banal, is up to you.

I do know that some writing is more complex than other writing. Some books are more
descriptive and maybe more thoughtful in their use of metaphors. Some books, especially the ones that are supposed to be “good”, may pertain more to the problems we face in our society. They may incorporate more history and a more pertinent message about what we should be doing to make our world better. That’s fine. We need those books because those books are the way in which we voice concerns we have with society. Those books get you thinking about the way you lead your life, and about how societal problems impact us. But that doesn’t make them “good” books. At least, that doesn’t mean that science fiction books, or romantic novels aren’t also good. Good encompasses so much more than that. “Good” is a natural impression and feeling we get from an experience. After we eat, we say “oh that steak was quite good” or “the sauce is so good.” We don’t eat something and then pull out our mental list of “does it have the right balance of salt and sweet? Does it contain every color of the rainbow, and does it absolutely, positively make me feel like a million bucks afterwards?” So after we read, we should be able to do a similar thing. We should be able to know whether what we read was “good” or just mediocre. We shouldn’t have to consult the “how to write a good book” manual, to gauge how pleasurable our reading experience was.

The reason that we can do this – just determine for ourselves, and not some list of
guidelines whether a piece of writing is good or not, is because writing speaks to us in different ways. What we read, and what others have written, resonates with the experiences we have had. Imagine being an athlete and imagine that you are talking to two people who themselves are very different. Lucy, the first one is an athlete just like you are. She trains for five hours each day, protein shakes and all. Then there’s Caitlin, who is working on getting her doctorate. She hopes to become one of the leading researchers in her field. You like hanging out with Lucy the best, because the stories she tells are like
your own. Running in the grueling heat and pushing through the pain of sore muscles are what you two have in common. On the other hand, you have a hard time relating to Caitlin. You don’t really understand what it’s like to sit at a desk for hours at a time. You don’t know the mental counterpart to physical exhaustion.

Well writing can be like a friend too. Different writing speaks about different things that we may or may not be interested in. That’s completely separate from whether writing is technically sound or whether its plot unfolds in our world or another. Maybe you like fantasies, for example, because you are fascinated with space, or because you like thinking about possibilities beyond the scope of the world we know. Or, maybe you resonate more with thrillers, because of that adrenaline rush you get. Regardless, you don’t have to shy away from calling it a “good” book. If you liked it, then it is good. If you liked it, it must have spoken to you in some way. Something must have clicked between you and the writing.

I certainly, am glad that writing does not have to follow a specific set of guidelines in order to be considered worthy. If that were the case, a lot of the books we know and love wouldn’t exist. Do you think “Twilight” would have fit the “good writing” criteria? I don’t think so. The thing is, however, that I gained a lot from reading the series. Vampires and Werewolves may not stimulate our brains to decode layers upon layers of metaphors but they do stimulate us in the creative sense. So I’ll be the first one to say that I thought Twilight was a good book. I read each book in the matter of two days. I imagined the characters and became completely entranced by this new world. Yes. It was very good. Stephanie Meyer did a remarkable job writing that.

I love being exposed to writing. I love reading what other people have courageously put into the public face, knowing that what they write will never be just a series of private thoughts ever again. And most importantly I appreciate all kinds of writing because I believe that writing should be versatile. Versatility requires that writing be unrestrained by certain rules. It means that the more we learn to judge for ourselves whether writing is good, and the less we restrain authors by telling them that certain types of writing are bad,
the better. There is no good, bad, positive, or negative. Writing speaks to everyone differently, and people react to writing differently. But everyone has their own opinions, and every piece of writing deserves to be judged individually, a million separate times by a million different people.