What makes a good novel? That’s a highly subjective topic. Everyone has their own ideas on what makes a good book. Try this exercise. Make a list of the books you love; the ones you read over and over again. List a series of books as a single entry on your list, such as “the Pern Books by Anne McCaffrey”. Now make a list of the books you hate; the ones your friends said “you have to read this”, but you just couldn’t get into it.
Go back to the love list. What do they all have in common which makes you love them? Good imagery? Characters you really identify with? Look at the hate list. What are the things you can’t stand in these novels? Over-using clichés? Bad spelling or grammar? Two dimensional “cardboard” characters”? Point of view problems?
When you make the plot for your novel, try very hard to incorporate the things you love, and be careful to avoid the things that really bug you. It’s very likely there are a lot of readers who will agree with you on both counts.
Personally, the novels I read and re-read all have characters who feel like good friends. I care about them and want them to win. The descriptions of the places are just enough to give me a picture in my head, yet not so overblown they get in the way of the story.
On the technical side, bad spelling and grammar drive me crazy. I’m not a grammar freak most of the time; otherwise I’d never survive the message boards at my favorite website. I understand people typing in a hurry make mistakes, and that’s fine. I do it, too. It’s another story when you’re supposedly a professional author, and you are sending a finished work out into the world. You must strive for perfection. Use a spell checker which will also check grammar. Use a friend who has a good knowledge of spelling and grammar. Do not, under any circumstances, try to market a piece of work which has bad spelling and bad grammar; it will destroy your credibility as a professional writer. Make sure you don’t have any point of view or continuity problems, either. I’ll be doing a lesson on those later.
For now, your assignment is to make your lists and figure out what, for you, makes a good novel, or a bad novel.