what sign lets you know that the author is really good?

[Haku45]

breaking expectations. I'm not talking about cases where, say, in isekai the story makes fun of isekai tropes (but still follows them bruh). But really, cases where you think the story will go one way, but it turns out the author decided on a different, better way. And it's don't look cheap and stupid like.

Also I like when authors use different pov. It'snot a big deal, but some stories really become better because of this

 

[wresch]

Love the question. And I think you are onto a major feature - originality. Assuming an author can describe characters and setting and present dialog that seems real, what contribution can they make beyond basic skills? We should probably start a list. You named one - fresh directions with plot or character. Interesting surprises in direction. Twists. I agree we expect that from good writers.

Let my post a second attribute - fresh places. A century ago, writers used "local color" (I vaguely remember that term from lit classes.) Stories took place out west or in the south. Someplace people had an interest in learning about. Now of course we have places all over the real and imagined universe. New, interesting places. A universe where we might want to live. Star Wars, anyone? Or Game of Thrones. There are other examples, but you get my point. I argue that skilled writers give us interesting places to inhabit for two or three hundred pages.

 

[Jemini]

My cardinal sign that the author is good is if they do something that is hard for the author to do and implies a lot of research and effort went into the writing.

Things like creating their own language, demonstrating well-researched geopolitical or economic knowledge, or having characters act like a human would even if it is directly in opposition to what would normally be convenient for the plot.

These are not things that can actually make a story good on their own, but they are things that make the job on the author harder. So, if the author is deliberately making their job harder like that, it is usually correlated with them putting a lot of effort into the more important things like plot and world building and characterization as well. You just don't do something like that if you don't deeply care about your work, and the author actually caring about their work to such a degree usually does lead to far better overall quality.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Thinking beyond tropes is enough for me.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

A nice cover is always a good sign for me. Everyone says not to judge a book by its cover, but we all do it anyway and we know it. A nice looking cover tells me the author takes their book seriously, which means there's a better chance it'll be well written and edited, while a cover that's just "stolen image off a Google search with text put over it in Microsoft Paint" is more likely to be badly written and not edited of proofread at all.

It doesn't always work out that way. There's no reason a bad author with some spare cash can't commission an artist for a decent looking cover, and a bad cover doesn't necessarily mean the book it's attached to is bad too. But I feel like the ratio of good books having good covers is a reliable enough metric.

 

[Kalliel]

If their prose are excellent, if they can build an immersive atmosphere, and if they can pull me in.

 

[NotaNuffian]

I enjoy violence and a somewhat never ending ride with little to no disruption.

First of, violence is a chore to write especially in pure text form, with clear choreography and believable impacts made by the parties within the fight.

Second, the off-fights are also important not just as a breather. It allows the characters to show their motivation and willingness to grow, not just the main protagonist. I think that shining light on secondary characters and adversaries is good, makes them somewhat a living creature than a one dimensioned errand to be ticked off.

Third, the overarching plot. It is quite funny for me considering I had been mainly reading in third person view of main protagonist aka like a camera on the game character, occasionally panning to cutscenes relevant to their current level instead of having an entire worldview and ceiling already set in. This can be easily distrupted should the author decides to abruptly ups the power scaling to absurdity just to make the fight "prominent". Most of the times it is done to show new powerful allies to MC, displays a future power up of MC, showcase the new magnitude of threat and etc, but do it at a whim and all I feel will be annoyance. For example, the world is mainly on high martial (高武) with people punching holes in mountain Gosu style. Suddenly having cultivators with magic abilities to nuke the plains with a finger snap is not the good way to tell me that the power ceiling is raised once more.

 

[NaturalBeef]

This is my opinion.
TLDR. A story that makes you think about it after you read it.


Generally, I think there are 3 ways things can go when you read a novel.
1. You dont enjoy it
2. You enjoy it but you have to turn your brain off
3. You don’t enjoy it but tolerates it
3. You enjoy it with your brain on

The first case happens because the story is not novel and not written well.
The second case happens when it is novel but not written well.
The third case is when it is not novel but written well.
The fourth case is when both of the things exist.

What is “novel” and “well written”?
Both of these terms depends on the reader here’s why.
Novelty depends on the difficulty of the reader to imagine the scenario of the story, which in turns means that if a reader is well read then he could imagine the story easily. It is why those JP novels with “strongest level …” are dull, just a glance from the title, an experienced reader can easily guest all the tropes and plot points. To a lesser extent “Reincarnated as …” is more pulling compared to “strongest level …” as you would need to think more to get a grasp on the story.

One of the best way to improve novelty is to pre-plan your story(or arc). If you found it hard to find a conclusive end to a story, it probably won’t work, it means that your story would be included with filler or non ending escalating threats.

On to the “well written”, probably the easier to quantify compared to the novelty.
Well written is the story’s ability to suspend disbelief. There are many common pitfalls and things to do, you probably could find these in a guide, for example.

-To do examples
Pacing; before dramatic moments build it up with something slow, slice of life, pov change, heartfelt moments as to not clutter the story.
Research; if you write something that leans on real information then it better be believable.
Lean on archetype; hero’s journey, wise old men, good vs evil, etc.
Words and Phrases; complicated enough to have you think on important moments, simple enough to understand
Mystery; keeps people hooked

-Not to do
Cliche; Mary sues, over used plot devices (young masters, etc.)
Repetition; no we don’t need the fourth scene of you describing preparing food
Unnecessary details; don’t bring up a place that’s gonna be relevant only 100 chapters later

As to the turning on or off the brain, it is easier to ignore suspension of disbelief when you don’t think.
For turning on the brain it happens when you relate with the story.

 

[Anonjohn20]

Features that give me a hint that the author is really good:

1. some level of worldbuilding as opposed to just taking it for granted
2. a bit of character development, the MC shouldn't be the same at the beginning as he or she is at the end
3. Consistent updates. I know its hard, but the guy who updates at least once a week is better than the guy who updates one time, and we won't see him for 1-3 months. This is more scheduling time to write rather than writing skill, but you know.
4. Switching between the many genres takes talent, only the very talented authors can turn a tragic scene into a comedic one or an action scene into a horror scene naturally without it seeming forced.
5. The story should have good pacing. Events can't feel too forced or drag out so long that the reader is bored.

 

[Corty]

Having a backlog of finished books.

I’m serious. I don't mind cliche; I don't mind edgy face-slapping. What I mind is that the time I have invested into the story is honored.

Oh yeah. This means it has a proper ending, not just quickly closing out of boredom.

 

[Tsuru]

breaking expectations. I'm not talking about cases where, say, in isekai the story makes fun of isekai tropes (but still follows them bruh). But really, cases where you think the story will go one way, but it turns out the author decided on a different, better way. And it's don't look cheap and stupid like.

Also I like when authors use different pov. It'snot a big deal, but some stories really become better because of this

A chinese author
that criticize its own country or attack gov.
Or cite good points of other countries.

The category called "No way this chinese author is chinese".

Edit : And yes, breaking expectations is basically the GIGA TOP1 on the list. You are indeed very smart Haku
(especially expectations of vet readers / even more if the readers can't even guess what happens next chap, just like the priestCN that threaten with a sacred-mini-nuke for better negociations)

 

[Jemini]

Oh, a second sign of a good author. If they manage to do something, especially in their 1st chapter, where a single portion of the text does at least 2 things at once. Such as, delivering exposition while also establishing characterization. That's a fairly basic one, but efficient writing where lines pull a double purpose like that are always a good sign of author skill.

Bonus points if the reader doesn't even realize it's exposition until they meet the scenario where the information they got given comes into play.

The more things they manage to condense into a single line, and the more times multi-purpose lines show up in the first chapter especially, the more I feel the author is probably good at what they do.

 

[expentio]

Things I can usually determine in the first chapter would be their prose. There's sometimes showing a certain skill with how well they describe situations and their text just flows without any form of speech that would make the text look crude.

 

[Terrate]

I need to be engaged the whole time, even if it's the most mundane thing such as drinking water. Not as in having several paragraphs of flowery words explaining how liquidy, tasty, cold, or how it quenched the character's thirst, but on how memorable that simple thing such as "drinking water" can be shown.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

It is nearly impossible to do something truly original. An author who can take old ideas and merge them in a way that makes them feel fresh is a good author. One who can do that AND throw in something that surprises a jaded reader is exceptional.

I need to be engaged the whole time, even if it's the most mundane thing such as drinking water. Not as in having several paragraphs of flowery words explaining how liquidy, tasty, cold, or how it quenched the character's thirst, but on how memorable that simple thing such as "drinking water" can be shown.

And then you have that passage from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
Ford Prefect: "I have heard it described as very unpleasant and a lot like being drunk."
Arthur Dent: "What is so unpleasant about being drunk?"
Ford: "Ask a glass of water."

 

[Jemini]

My last sign of a REALLY good author.

Things exist off-screen in a very real way. The more real the off-screen things are, the better.

At the most basic, this would mean things like the author did a lot of worldbuilding, but didn't tell the reader much about it. However, the fact the author placed those things in their world subtlety changes their approach to the writing. Even if you don't know exactly what the off-screen worldbuilding things are, perhaps the existence of a trade city far away from the town they're currently in or something like that, the mere existence of this thing will change things the way the author writes (such as altering the amount of goods that are in the market of the town the characters are in now.)

On a more advanced level, it can be something like entire active chains of events that are happening completely off screen with no actual mention to the reader. The author, however, knows it's going on and maybe a character they meet down the line will act subtlely different because they were in some way involved in whatever happened off screen and the reader was never told about. But, because the author knows they had this experience, they just act a little different.

Perhaps they are happy that their favorite team won a game, perhaps they are a little more solemn because they are aware of a murder that happened two towns over. Whatever the case, it reflects in the character's behavior during the interaction, even if the reader is never told exactly why this character is behaving this way.

I guess this sort of wraps into my first point of the author doing things that make it harder on themselves, but this one also has the extra quality to it of the author also practicing the restraint to not dump a lot of useless information from their world-building on their reader, but they still create all this stuff anyway, and this silent background stuff does affect the writing in a subtle yet profound way.

 

[Jocelyn_Uasal]

Surprisingly enough? Slow starts that seem like they aren't going anywhere. Jane Austen does this wonderfully, but so do so many other authors.

The story will open up talking about something that seems meaningless, maybe a conversation at a store or a walk through the neighborhood, and then as the story progresses you start to notice little things here and there that were mentioned in the first chapter and have a much greater effect upon the story than anyone could have guessed!

I mean like, Emma (the book) opens up talking about how much Emma (the mc) loves to make matches and how good she is at it. The whole time I'm thinking "Ok good for you, who cares" and then she goes on to make herself look like an idiot 4 times over, all on account of her 'wonderful matchmaking'. The whole story is a parody of everything they say in chapter 1.