As I was blog hopping I came across this post at Romancing the blog by Sharon Long that grabbed my attention:
A great story teller can make me forget everything but what’s going to happen next. If you tell me a good enough story, I won’t care if you got every detail right. I won’t care if you are overly fond of comma splicing. (And boy does this drive me insane, but I won’t get started on this pet peeve.) I won’t care if you’ve single-handedly invented an alternate guide to grammar (Plenty of those authors out there). Won’t matter to me if you run fourteen sentences together with “and.”
Tell me a story where I’m holding my breath with every page. Give me characters to cheer for. Situations to empathize with. Entertain me. Don’t give me a dry dissertation on the proper way to construct a story. Because I simply won’t care no matter how superior your writing skills are.
Hell yes. That’s what I’m talking about. As a reader, your so caught up in the story that the flaws — — what flaws? — — go unnoticed. If I’m that entertained, I don’t really care about writing structure at that point. I’m too engrossed in the story. I’ve enjoyed books where the writing was awful but the story was absolutely memorable. Really good books make me forget about eating, have me lock my door for privacy, numb my hands because the book is too heavy, keep me up reading late into the wee hours of the night. This is my type of book. I don’t think at that point, we really care how it’s written. My hat goes off to the storytellers out there. Your in a class all by yourselves and you know who you are.
Dennis Lehane's next published novel is a major publishing event. 
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Tara Marie 12.10.06 at 5:38 am
I think you and Ms. Long are exactly right, I can overlook a whole host of problems when I’m into a book — Bogeyman by Gayle Wilson has a bunch of typos, I didn’t care, the storytelling held my attention enough that I didn’t find myself nit picking mistakes.
xina 12.10.06 at 6:57 pm
I agree with you Keishon. I love reading and that type of book that you describe doesn’t come around very often, but the ones that have are treasures. I’ve been reading for entertainment since I was 5, seriously reading novels since 10. All of these years later…I know what I like and it isn’t sentence structure that makes these books that I’ve loved special. It’s the story from the beginning to the end. In a way, I feel sorry for the ones that nitpick every single thing. They may be letting a really good story slipt through their fingers.
Avid Reader 12.10.06 at 7:56 pm
I can’t analyze a book in depth as most readers can. Either I like it or I don’t and here are the reasons why. I try not to read too much into the actions and motivations of characters. I tend to avoid those types of reviews as well as it doesn’t help me much when you make assumptions that are rather subjective. If I’m entertained that’s all I can ever ask from an author, really. Just make me a happy reader.