A friend in the writing business said this to me recently and it set me off thinking about precisely what is meant by that phrase. I have recently self-published a small novel myself and this has started me reading blogs on writing and publishing. I have been rather surprised by some of the vitriolic criticism I have come across, particularly pertaining to self-published books. I find myself thinking: well alright, maybe it is badly written but does that really justify comments like ‘risible’, ‘a joke’, ‘should never have been published’ and so on. When all is done these authors are just ordinary folk wanting to publish a book they have written. Does it really matter much, in the overall scheme of things, if the book is ‘not very good’? They are not celebrities who think they have a god-given genius for every art form known to man, and whose fall from the pinnacle of grace could perhaps justify gleeful vitriol from the peasants they look down upon. They are just ordinary folk who have written a book they would like to publish.
Thoughts like these do not sit in isolation like clumps of rock in a field; they ramble off on a journey. My thoughts rambled away and brought me to a particular review of a self-published book that I had come across. The reviewer gave up after reading 11 pages out of 200 odd, because of ‘clunky writing style’ and grammatical errors. It turned out that the author had sold 1000 copies in just a few months and the reviewer could not understand why. Well, I have not read the book but it sounded to me like a moving and interesting story, and that was probably why it sold.
In spite of the ‘clunky writing’ and grammatical errors? Certainly. I don’t think most readers give a toss about such things, even if they notice them, as long as a book ‘speaks to them’. Clunky, positively illiterate writing by little children is very often rivetting to read, not because it is by a child per se, but because it is fresh and honest and makes no attempt to impress; it just ‘speaks to you’. Books by adults can be the same. Faults that make editors wince, and critics scrabble for synonyms of ‘risible’ are not even noticed by ordinary folk, as long as a book ‘speaks to them’. The one reviewed appeared to do just that.
I am not one to judge whether J K Rowling is a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ writer, but I think it safe to say that if she is a bad one, there are quite a few readers who don’t seem bothered by it. Perhaps she has the ability to ‘speak to them’.