HAPPILY EVER AFTER discussion

How much do bad writing, typing errors, spelling inaccuracies and grammatical mistakes influence your reading enjoyment?

What makes your reading experience more enjoyable: quality writing or a good story?

A book has to be appealing like you said, Ramla. I want to really get into the book - as long as it's good. I don't want to read books that fail to make me feel that the characters are real and a story that is boring or lacking. The characters have to be realistic and likable. A writing style that displays a good sense of humor that is interwoven in an intriguing, action-packed mystery with decent, truly romantic romance are elements I like to read.

In Mysteries, I like to find clues as I'm reading and solve it myself, so if there are things that end up being just an error by the writer - that's annoying!

Overall, though, it's more important for the book to be well-written, with an accurate, intelligent mindset, than for there to be zero grammatical errors. A character doing or saying something ignorant/wrong and the writer acting like that is totally fine can ruin a book quicker than any typo.

For me one of the most important thing in a book is for the writing to be addictive, engrossing, polished, decent, appealing, entertaining and witty. 

In my experience, if the book fails to retain my attention and interest, and does not provide me pleasure, then usually it is not a problem with the story, but it is the way the story is written, that makes it boring.

No matter how unique the idea is, but if it's written in a dull and monotonous way then it fails to make for an enjoyable read. On the other hand, even an average story can come across as entertaining to me if the writing style is wonderful.

Also, in my opinion, characters are usually as vital as the story, as it's important to get mentally and emotionally involved not just with the story itself but also with the people living that story, and good characterisation depends on good writing skills. 

Moreover, while I can usually manage to suspend belief if the storyline is somewhat flawed and unrealistic, but it's difficult not to get distracted when there are too many writing inconsistencies, continuity issues, typing errors, spelling inaccuracies and grammatical mistakes.

Of course, an ideal situation would be that both the writing and the story be excellent. 

Especially, when I consider the genre of "Mystery" then I think that the story concept and the story plotting play as important role as the story execution, that is, the writing.

However, I have read several "Romance" books by various authors that contained similar story plots but the way the different authors executed, that is, wrote, the stories, made a tremendous difference in my level of enjoyment of those books. 

So if I have to chose between the two, then I would have to say that it is the quality of the writing, rather than a good story, that contributes in making  my overall reading experience enjoyable.

I am going to be honest, they do affect my reading experience. There are a lot of typos and typography issues that make me distracted from reading the book.

Dorottya wrote: "I am going to be honest, they do affect my reading experience. There are a lot of typos and typography issues that make me distracted from reading the book."

I'm with you. It would have to be an awfully good story to keep my interest. But in most cases, if the author doesn't have the skill to use proper grammar and spelling, then they don't have other writing skills either.

A lot, that is what editors are for! I also hate it when names are mixed up or translation errors..

Odette wrote: "A lot, that is what editors are for! I also hate it when names are mixed up or translation errors.."

Agreed, if it's really bad, the book is put down and never to be read.