What makes a bad novel?

     This is a question that I muse on quite often, as I have encountered many of them in the time of my internet presence.  So, what does make a bad novel?  It’s a daunting question, but I will attempt to answer it in this article. So, let’s begin.

     I guess the best place to start is the story.  All novels need a solid story, that’s a given.  But how does an author screw up the story?  Being an amateur writer myself, it’s pretty easy.  You need to get the idea, and what’s in your head onto the paper.  And that is tough, believe me. I have had fantastic ideas in my head, which never seem to come out right on paper.  But I digress, if you have a great idea that is for a good story and you can’t make it come out right… Well, it’s not the end of the world, there’s still more aspects that can save the story.

     The characters, the author need strong characters to keep the readers interesting, things that some of the novels I have read, have not.  Most of the time, they’re either bland and unappealing or just 2-Dimensional.  And even if the characters are bland, they could be interesting, but usually that doesn’t work.  For example, in Peter David’s Before Dishonor, it used established characters, and failed.  As I have already said in my review of it, Peter David turned my favorite Star Trek cast, into side characters in a Voyager book.  If he was going to make a Voyager book, label it as such. But I digress, even if the characters are bad, it isn’t all lost yet.

     The final piece that can save a book is, of course, the level of imagery and imagination.  If the author can make you imagine a fantastic world, and allow you to escape reality, they have done a good job.  And, yeah Before Dishonor and Backwards did not do that, and only made me want to go watch episodes of Star Trek and Red Dwarf respectively.  There’s no problem with referencing older episodes, but when it interferes with the magic and immersion of a novel, then it’s an issue.  Which is why books based on television series have to be stand-alone, or else the authors just reference the show too much.

     So, that’s what makes a bad novel.  If you don’t have a solid story, engaging characters or good immersion, the book will not be a good one.  So, that was my analysis of bad novels.  I’m Michael and those were my random thoughts.