4chan archive /lit/ (index)
2012-09-23 06:57 3002120 Anonymous (no 3.jpg 600x400 116kB)
Yo /lit/, I'm trying to get back into the gist of reading and I was wondering how to tell if a book is "well-written?"
8 min later 3002142 Anonymous
>>3002120
If you don't want to stop reading it.
20 min later 3002166 Anonymous
>>3002142
boring books can be well written
34 min later 3002203 Anonymous
learn about grammar, syntax, semantics, scansion, etc.
51 min later 3002248 Anonymous
>>3002120
When you say "well-written," do you mean good prose or good overall?
1 hours later 3002271 Anonymous
OP here. I mean prose.
1 hours later 3002292 Anonymous
>>3002120
If you still remember it in a year, then it is good.
1 hours later 3002303 Anonymous
>>3002292
OP here, I read Of Mice and Men a couple of months back and I can't remember the majority of the characters' names and the plot mostly. So according to you, I really didn't like it? I remember almost everything from The Kite Runner.
1 hours later 3002308 Anonymous
>>3002303
You might just have terrible taste in books. It's nothing bad, per se, but don't post on this board during the night. That's when the guys with doctorates in English will come out in droves.
1 hours later 3002315 Anonymous
>>3002308
Don't get me wrong; I liked Of Mice and Men but eh...it was an okay novel to me.
1 hours later 3002325 Anonymous
'Well-written' can mean almost whatever.
If a text is written in clear and understandable prose, it is well-written.
If a text uses language in an imaginative and creative way, it is well-written as well.
Although with both of those examples, there can be people who think that one is bad and one is good, but the ideal is probably somewhere in the middle. The reader should get an idea of what the fuck the author tries to convey, but it should be with vibrancy, nuance and creativity, and there isn't really a clear cut definition of what 'well-written' is.
1 hours later 3002343 Anonymous
>>3002303
Yes, that's exactly how it works. I still mostly remember 'Of Mice and Men' even though I read it 15 years ago.
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