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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/32835
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I realise that this question can fall in the scope of personal opinion but I am looking for something concrete.

Very often, not only on this site but other writing related sites, I find people constantly say that certain popular authors are, in reality, bad writers. These include the likes of J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, Christopher Paolini, etc. Reasons range from minor plot holes to being too verbose. However, that should not exactly be true or should rather be minor insignificant things as otherwise the authors would not have been so popular (Correct?)

And (for e.g. on this site) this is not just the opinion of just any random users of the site but those who have been long term users, whose answers have been quite insightful, i.e. those appear to know what they are talking about. I could never understand why these authors are being branded as such.

So, to make it a concrete question, What are these popular authors doing wrong (or missing from their writing) that makes them a bad writer? Or what pitfalls should a good writer avoid?

Original score: 53