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Hey there!
@mineralizedwritings @madelyn @koshka @elishavet-pidyon @keilah-h @orielle21 @felicity @godlyfantasy12 @lightoverdarkness6 @folith-feolin @sarafini @esther-c @freedomwriter76 @whalekeeper @ava-blue @loopylin @theloonyone @wilder-w @arien @othersSo I thought it would be fun to share the worst books we’ve ever read. (Worst written or otherwise).
I think there’s a lot we can learn about how not to write books from badly written books, which makes us better writers!
A few from me:
The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks.
Classic LOTR ripoff badly done. It follows Flick and Shea (Frodo and Sam) as they go on a journey to find a Talisman that’s being held by an Evil Guy. They are accompanied by Allanon (Gandalf, also referred to as “the Druid,” “the Historian,” “the Dark Historian,” “the tall historian,” and many other names), Balinor (Aragorn), Menion (Boromir), Durin (Legolas), and Dayel (another Elf) and Hendel (Gimli). They are fighting the Warlock Lord, who is Sauron.
Not to mention the writing. Arien and I still laugh about Flick pushing aside the “leafy obstacle” when he runs into a branch.
Also unbelievable plot twists. Hendel, the Dwarf, ought to have died several times but is brought back to life to appear later.
Sorry, trying not to rant. Moving on . . .
The Chronicles of Aedyn, by Alister McGrath
As you might have guessed, it’s the Chronicles of Narnia. The boy’s name is Peter, and the girl even has a friend named Lucy.
In the first book, they defeat all their enemies by screaming. That’s it. They just scream. And the Wolf, the Leopard, and the Jackal disappear in fright.
In the second book, there’s an evil stepmother and spoiled step-siblings. Cinderella all over again.
Adventures of the Northwoods, by Lois Walfrid Johnson
Don’t describe all your characters the same way . . . in this case, everyone has “broad shoulders from farm work.”
That’s all I’ll say about that one.
So what about you? What have you learned from badly-written books?
Dark is the Shadow, and yet my heart rejoices.
Here’s a cringy book you should absolutely not read:
If the South Had Won the Civil War by MacKinlay Kantor
So basically General Grant’s (the gen. of the Union army) horse gets spooked by a cat. Grant falls off of his horse, his horse falls on top of him, smashing his head into a rock (that appeared suddenly) and he dies.
General Mosby (a Confederate cavalry mercenary) goes to D.C. and the Whitehouse butler tricks Pres. Lincoln into getting into Mosby’s carriage, which takes him to a prison in Richmond, VA.
The South takes over D. C. and the Union moves their capital to Columbus, Ohio.
He must increase, but I must decrease.
I absolutely Hated the divergent series especially whatever the last one is called I read it in 7th grade after finishing the hunger games I can’t remember why I don’t like it now. (Which is weird because I’m In 10th grade now so it wasn’t that long ago)
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Sorry to you fans of this but A Series of Unfortunate Events was awful! So depressing! Not one good thing happens to them. I got 3 books in before I finally asked my sister to stop reading them to me. At least make 1 good thing happen, you know. It was just so annoying! There was a Peter Pan rip off I read too that was so boring. It was a trilogy I’m pretty sure. I can’t remember the title. Lol. I’d know it if I saw the cover. Ooh! I just remembered! One of the books was titled Peter and the Starcatchers.
Oh, thanks for the great topic!
Wow, those ones you mentioned sound pretty bad! XD
For me, it would have to be the sequels to the city of ember. I’ve talked about this before, but they were not well done. My story is partially inspired by it, although a lot different. I realized at some point, one of the problems with the sequels was having everyone leave. They just needed to do something different. You end up with this long no-plot period of time, where the characters have to build outhouses, find food, and deal with the people who already live there. It’s boring, and the only way to keep the reader from asking how the people are still alive. It’s kinda the expected thing to happen, I would have liked to have seen something more creative. First book was amazing though.
I remember in one of the sequels, the two mc’s go back for supplies, only to be kinda enslaved by some people who moved down there to live off of the houses left in a hurry. They just keep them around in chains to do chores and keep them company or something. I felt like it jarred the innocent enjoyment of the series, and idk it just didn’t feel as compelling and interesting as the first.
I just realized something. I don’t think the sequels had much character development. maybe that’s one reason why I didn’t like them.
Anyways, I learned so much about what not to do. Meaning, (ok lil spoiler) I’m going to leave a bunch of people underground. I think it’s more interesting, there’s more possibilities, and you can have the mc’s do all kinds of crazy stuff without a community to be responsible too.
へびは かっこいい です！
@felicity @folith-feolin @sarafini @mineralizedwritings
Sorry I didn’t respond sooner! For some reason my email doesn’t notify me when people tag me on this forum. (other forums work just fine . . .)
I feel like a lot of long series get worse as they go one. The Ranger’s Apprentice series was like that. After the first five books or so, all the plots were the same, the characters didn’t develop anymore, and it was So. Boring.
I think often publishers keep pushing for authors to write more and more books and the authors can’t think of any new ideas anymore.
Dark is the Shadow, and yet my heart rejoices.
Hmm…I’m glad to hear that about the Ranger’s Apprentice series actually, because I read three or four of the books and then never picked them up again…and all this time I thought I was missing out on the last ones. Turns out I’m probably not. 😀
He must increase, but I must decrease.
Lol yeah… idk but I didn’t get a notification either, I just happened upon that you tagged me by exploring in recent topics.
へびは かっこいい です！
@starofthenorth So I studied English in college, so, uh, there’s a lot of “worst books” I’ve read. 😬 But I’m not going to tear those apart here, since 1. I can’t remember most of them, 2. They’re pretty obscure, and 3. I did enough of that in school, lol!
Anyway! I’m probably going to offend a lot of my fellow Keepers when I say this, but two books that I found disappointing (though far from the worst) were The Green Ember and Ember Falls. I heard them hyped up so much (both here and…pretty much everywhere else) and I just…didn’t like them. I couldn’t get attached to the characters (except for Smalls and…Picket’s sister, kind of. I cannot remember her name and am too lazy to look it up), the plot felt pretty…I don’t know what the right word is. Flat, maybe? But it wasn’t bad??Honestly, I just didn’t like The Vibe; it felt like the Redwall series without the coziness; it just felt a little bleak by the time I started on book three. I just don’t think that sub-genre of stories are my thing, which isn’t the books’ fault, lol! Anyway, maybe one day I’ll pick up the rest of the series; I did like the writing style, I just couldn’t get in to the rest of it.
“Seven seconds till the end. Time enough for you. Perhaps. But what will you do with it?”
I get that! I’ve only read the first greem ember book, and yeah, it was because of the hype. I knew lots of other christian liked it, so I tried it. I felt like the beginning was a bit too much consistent but boring action. One of the things I liked the most about it (and probobly is what kept me reading) Was pickets struggle with bitterness. Like for most of the book, your like goodness, picket’s being a jerk. But him having a negative character arc for most of the book is interesting to me, and somewhat relatable.
I had a hard time connecting to the lore of the series mostly. It had a lot of things specific to the series, the paintings hall, the room of statues, it’s own old stories, but for some reason the world-building didn’t connect with me in a real way. Theirs just some books and stories I’ve read that felt “alive” because the world-building was so good, this just wasn’t doing it. :/
へびは かっこいい です！
@mineralizedwritings @lewilliams
I totally agree about the Green Ember books! I thought basically everyone I knew loved them, but yeah, it didn’t do the trick for me. I did like Picket, and Helmer, and I still quote “Everything is a weapon” with my dad and sister, but otherwise . . . maybe I wasn’t hooked on the idea of animals acting like people. Especially when they could have been people with no major changes, and stuff like it says “hands” instead of “paws” and they can do all sorts of things that seem limited to people. Hope I didn’t offend anyone :0
Be brave. Be strong. Be bold.
-Christopher Blakewell@arien @mineralizedwritings @lewilliams
*spoilers* *if you haven’t read all four Green Ember books, beware*
So…I get what you all are saying about the Green Ember books, but…
I personally really enjoyed them. I actually read the first four books in about a week. Coming into it a felt a bit sheepish, because the age range is below me, but, I was hooked from the first couple chapters and couldn’t put it down!
The first book is definitely not as action packed and full of tension as the last two are, but I appreciated the homey introduction and could relate with Heather a lot.
It’s probably just a preference thing. But one real critique I have is that there was a whole lot of traitors. It seemed like every book at least one or two characters betrayed the cause. It made me not sure who to trust, even at the very end when I thought things should be clear who was on the good and bad sides.
Anyway, my younger sisters are reading it, and they love it. They’re in the age range that the books were written for, so maybe that’s why they can connect so well with the characters.
I actually don’t think I would have read it if it was humans. But because it was rabbits, it made some of the parts not as gruesome and horrible. It’s one thing when rabbit children are being eaten by hawks…it’s another thing if it’s humans…..like, I wouldn’t read that type of book!!!
So, *shrug* different opinions are great! Yeah, I like that line, “Everything is a weapon.” 😀 My favorite line is, “My place beside yours, my blood for yours, ’till the Green Ember falls or the end of the world.”
He must increase, but I must decrease.
I know I’ve read bad books!! But I can’t think of any right now… I’ll come back if I think of any. 😁
Write what should not be forgotten. — Isabel Allende
Oh, bad books. There have been a few of those…
Recently it was one that I wanted to read because it was the last installment to a time travel trilogy I had enjoyed, even though it was romance. The plot was okay, but I ended up skipping A LOT of pages. XD Like…. No. Just no. (it was, technically, clean, but too suggestive in my opinion). Lesson is, for those writing romance, be sure you word yourself tastefully.
Also, whatever happened to the MC’s brother?! That was NOT resolved.
Anyway,
Someone mentioned Ranger’s Apprentice, which although I haven’t read that far, I have heard that after a while it lost momentum. As for me, I’ve read up to Sorcerer of the North, which I’m kinda scared to read. The title just throws me off.
But I do want to mention BROTHER BAND! If anyone has read that series, you might know about The Caldera …. And while I may be mistaken, have heard how it has no connection to the series’plot. I have not personally read it, but my brother and my best friend have both given me the run down.
Points.
- Like I said, no relevance. In the book before, (spoiler for Ghostfaces!) one of the main characters actually got married… And his wife died. While this is unfortunate, what is worse is that in the Caldera, this character seems perfectly fine! And it’s only been a few days. This could have been such a good plot line to explore, but instead it was ignored.
- Despite having little connection with the rest of the series, it still managed to be redundant. Another unconquerable thing to conquer!
Thankfully, the next book made up for everything. (I think it’s the Stern Chase but I may be wrong.) At least, that’s what my brother said. 😉 I may be wrong, or maybe that opinion is just scewed. I just thought I’d mention the Caldera, because it kinda embodies a few of my trepidations with my own series.
Also…. Someone mentioned the Green Ember….
*Pulls out my sword*
Just kidding.
*Puts it back*
I understand if it’s not your style. After all, my best friend has read it, and she doesn’t love it either.
For me? It was soooo good. I was able to connect with the plot and the characters. (Did anyone else cry when Nylen and Kylen came back in the fourth book?)
But then, I like rabbits with swords. 🙂
You have listened to fears, child. Come, let me breathe on you... Are you brave again? -Aslan
Hmmmm…
First, I’ll say, @sarafini, I just made it through the first of the Peter Pan books you’re talking about… and I can’t say I’ll finish the trilogy XD. It was too slow-moving… it had some potential, but it didn’t fulfill it.
With the Ranger’s Apprentice, I’ll have to echo a couple of you (@starofthenorth @felicity) that they really didn’t grab my interest. In fact, I only read the first book… if it was the first book… I had trouble figuring that out 😉
On to other books…
I had a lot of trouble thinking of any, ’cause I think the more poorly written a book is, the more forgettable it is XD.
I think one of the most poorly-written books I’ve read was Carlota by Scott O’Dell. I can’t remember it that well, but it was about a horse and a girl whose father wishes she had been a boy. I remember it was poorly written because the main character (Carlota) was so bland that I felt no emotional connection with her at all. In fact, she didn’t seem to have many emotions XD. The plot was also poorly done.
It has been a while since I read the book, and I did finish it, I did remember it, and I think I may have reread it. So it certainly wasn’t the worst book I’ve read, but it was poorly done.
On the same note, (actually, the same author), and this may surprise some people, but I didn’t really enjoy The Island of Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell either. I know it’s somewhat of a classic, but there wasn’t a clear plot. The stakes weren’t gripping, little character (or plot) development, there was no mystery or suspense, and I don’t remember there being many other characters besides the MC for the majority of the book. As far as I can remember, it was just a narration of a girl trying not to die on an island, but that really doesn’t make a plot.
I’d say it was better than Carlota because I liked the MC more. Again, not the worst book I’ve read, but I was disappointed in the plot.
And I now I looked at your profile and saw that Scott O’Dell is among your favorite authors XD. Well, I trust your taste in reading, so perhaps I just forgot the parts I liked about his books 😉
On a bright note, I honestly can’t remember most of the other poorly-written books that I’ve read, and I’m glad for that. That just leaves more room in my memory for the good books! 🙂 😉
~In Christ Alone My Hope Is Found~
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