Young Writers Society

A good story, basically, should have a good storyline. Also, readers will like to see the MC go through many ups and downs. We won't want to see the MC always winnning the battles. We want to see the struggles that the MC goes through. After all, the MC will always emerge victorious in the last battle. So I believe that the story must always contain some hardship for the MC.

Great writing.

Emotional impact is usually my answer to this stuff. Good writing makes you 'feel' things, whether its sadness, contempt, horror, or happiness. Of course, all people react to different emotions differently, and people have different emotional thresholds. Most bestsellers provoke a lot of low level emotions, from people easily moved to tears or laughter. Great writing is subtler, but has much more emotional impact to people intellectual enough to get it. Everything else is a part of it, but it doesn't paint the whole picture.

Also,

Great writing.

If only, if only...

Agreeing with everyone else, Harry Potter was a good book series because of the imaginary world created. The characters are realistic (if you leave out the magic, of course). That is why Harry Potter fanfiction was so huge, because there were infinite possibilities in writing it. You can imagine yourself in the world of Harry Potter however you want, you can decided if you would be best suited to Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. What would your wand be like? Has it got Unicorn tail hair, or Dragon Heart string? The possibilities are endless.

As for Twilight, that's different. You see, the writing isn't actually very good. Terrible writing in fact. With Twilight, it's popular, but isn't written well. Just read what Stephen King has to say about Twilight:

"Both Rowling and Meyer, they're speaking directly to young people... The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."

But the reason Twilight is so popular is because the characters are so one dimensional. Yes, you read that right, the characters being bad, make it popular. You see, Stephenie Meyer has made her characters in an ingenious manner. She's made Bella such a vague, flat character and has set the story in first person format. You see, this encourages the reader to set themselves as Bella, the MC. And since the book is aimed at teenage girls, this was an incredibly smart move. Seeing that Edward is portrayed as 'the perfect guy', every teenage girl who reads it is just imagining themselves as Bella, with Edward. Thus, they fall in love, they recommend the book to their friends, who buy the book themselves, who recommend it to others...
See what I mean?

So the basic idea is, a book doesn't have to actually be good to be popular. It just has to have a method of making it likeable to the literary inept.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope it helped.

The question wasn't - what makes a bestseller? - it was, what makes a great book? And thus, great writing is a perfectly valid answer.

When I saw this title, I couldn't wait to read it. Everyone made some great points. And I agree with most of them.
Here are some things I think a good book should have...

1. It must have a good storyline. I don't care how good a writer you are. It has to pull you in, and make you wonder. I was reading the Angel of Mercy series by Al Lacy, and his writing is exquisite. But the story lines are usually lacking. Though I enjoy his writing style, I just don't have enough interest to continue.

2. Description, flow, and creativity are all just as important as a good storyline. You could have the best idea in the world, but without delivering it properly it will sink. Twilight I found to be an exception. I honestly didn't like her delivery, but the idea was new. Still, I never finished the book, didn't grab me.

3. Characters. Dude, don't you love it when you find that character who you can completely relate to and fall in love with? They can't be perfect or they're completely boring. In my eyes, the more flaws the better. To an extent. See what's hard with writing a book, is you are only one person with your own unique personality. So writing three to six deep and distinct personalities is sometimes hard.

Ok well, that's my take. Hope I didn't steal too much of your time

What I need most in a good book is aside from believable characters and a good writing style is a excellent plot.

What makes me put a book aside the fastest is a boring plot line. With boring I mean predictable. Not in the over all scheme (everyone knows that the MC will almost always win in the end) but in the subplots or individual scenes.
If a character is in a tight spot I do not want to be able to tell you before hand how he or she will get out of this. It has to be unexpected for me. Depending on how many scenes that fulfill this criteria a book has in relation to how many do not the book is better or worse. If the writer manages to make the actual ending unpredictable (except for the part that in general everything turns out more or less for the best - you have that everywhere) the book is really great in my opinion.
Of course to support this believable characters are needed and no Deus ex machinas are allowed. I need to be able to look at the situation in hindsight and be able to say: "This solution is believable."
Then last but not least the book should not have long periods where you get the feeling nothing is happening. (Eg in Harry Potter 7 when they are camping. That was so boring.)

If a book fulfills all the criteria I mentioned in the paragraph above I normally considers a book good even if the writing is not brilliant. Although if the writing is so bad that it annoys me the book cannot be good. What makes a book excellent beyond reading it for the first time is really good writing that makes it fun to read not only for the stories and characters sake.

The absolute book killer in my opinion is characters getting out of character. That is the worst thing that you can do. No matter how good a book is if the character quits being believable because he/she undergoes a unbelievable change in character the book is lost. You need to identify with the character.

Hmm. Looking at my post now I think I was rambling...
Well I hope I made myself clear!

Aina

I agree with everyone so far, but what I mainly look for in books is something that appeals to my interests. I'm not really into romance, so mushy books like Twilight are boring to me. And if a book doesn't have a lot of action, I like humor that will make me start laughing out loud.

I good book is a book that twists your perceptions on life, a book that shakes you to the core, a book that moves you to tears several times, a book where there are no bad guys, thats always a must. I dont know why but the best books are the ones where anybody could have been the main character, anybody could have been sympathetic enough. The hero or heroine was just the person singled out with the spotlight. The book I'm thinking of Specifically is Gone With the Wind, probably my favorite book of all time. It wasnt romance as much as it was human nature and the brutality of war. Another one would be Uncle Tom's Cabin (I guess Im a fan of that era) and Frankenstein.