1 - no

2 - yes, there are lots of slice of life books. for these the characters need to be interesting

3 - if you have conflict at all, it can come at any time in the story (and it can be bigger or smaller as you feel like)

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write what you think your stories are

write them as best you can at the moment

then finish your story

a good book is a finished book

Un bon livre, c'est quand on a une bonne écriture, des persos pas tout blanc ou tout noir, et une histoire crédible qui tient la route.

What makes a good book for me is a theme or a point to it all. You can rearrange the set dressing, but if you aren't saying anything or have a message for why your book needs to exist, I really couldn't care less.

Even it's a cozy fantasy where the moral is "take pleasure in the simple things, life is complicated and we all want peace" or a romance where "true love conquers all"... I want to feel like there was a point the author was trying to make.

Do you read a lot? If not, start. That’s how you learn what a good book is.

A good book makes the reader feel something and keeps them turning pages, even quietly. Everything else is optional, including villains, big plots, or nonstop tension.

Villains are not always bad guys wearing black. They can just be people who stand in the way of a character: banker who rejects a loan for a business or maybe the police officer who writes a parking ticket. They don't need to be outright bad people but certain folks should be acting in ways that act against the plans of the character. A bureacracy, institution or just motives that conflict. There has to be someone who has a conflicting agency. Otherwise you wouldn't have a story. Just an anecdote.

The answer to the other two questions is this: you don't need suspense like a life threatening event but rather something has to get our attention. Whatever it is and it needs to happen soon or you bore the reader and also probably yourself. I have heard that you should start the story as close to the action as possible. Doesn't have to be a car chase. Maybe somebody notices their wallet is gone and they're on a date about to pay a bill, a lady baked a cake for a party but the dog ate it, whatever. Don't meander. Set the tone but get to the point. Guns, bombs or just a funny situation. It's up to you but it can't all be hunky dory for the main character. There has to be a conflict.

You’re the one who writes the book. You should ask yourself what a good book is to you. Think about all the stories you love. What makes you love them?

Here’s the deal: if you think it’s good, you can make it good. Your passion would come through in your writing and your argument and logic in your story. If you just write what others think are good, you may end up with a project that you’re not passionate about. Please yourself first and then please others. Not the other way around.

1: No.
2: Sí, pero debe haber conflicto, a menos a que seas un genio superdotado.
3: Sí, pero tiene que escalar por los capítulos. O sea, como un libro de misterio. El conflicto es como la resolución del caso. De todas formas, también tienes que tener muy buena práctica para eso.

• balanced prose (not too over or under written)
• internally consistent characters with flaws and goals
• conflict that makes sense and has a back and forth

A good book is - to me - two things: A book, a compelling story that people want to read -- and a story that you feel compelled to tell. I have several as yet unpublished novels but each of them is a story I felt must be worth publishing. I am gay, older and autistic and I know my voice my not be for everyone but even if for a few then it is worth both the reading and the writing. Do your characters speak to you? Do you think about the plot in abstract moments? Write always for yourself first. And - if you plan on becoming a writer - then write, write, write and write some more.

You need some sort of conflict (no matter how mild) for your main character.

Start with an outline (just bullet points for your story arc). Have an arc (about 5 specific plot points that are the start, about 2/5 into it, the middle, about 4/5 into it, and the end). Each chapter should be about the length of a short story (1,500-3,000 words). Do some study on story structure.

The most important part of writing is to be true to your characters. If they “tell” you they want to do something different than your outline, let them, and accordingly adjust your outline.

Your first draft is going to be garbage. That voice in your head that’s telling you “this sucks?” It’s right, and it’s fine. Put that voice in a box and don’t listen to it until you’ve finished your first draft (at least 80,000 words).

When you’re done, put it aside for six weeks (do or write something else), then print out the manuscript, get yourself a fine point red pen, let that little negative voice out of its box, and go to town on the edit.

The way you get this done is discipline. Figure out how many words you can write in one sitting (no fewer than 500), and treat it like a job: five days a week, you’re going to meet your word count.

500 words a day gets you finished in eight months.

Good luck! ✌️🤘

That's a little too subjective to answer in a simple way.

1. No. But some sort of conflict/roadblock in your character's journey(s) has to be there.

2. Most of the time, I don't think that would work unless your character's journey of "enjoying life" is exceptionally compelling. Which, if you think it is, go for it.

3. Depends on what you wrote before the conflict. Most of the time, you need to at least plant the seeds of the conflict even if it's at the end.

What I would say is think about your favorite books. Why did you like them? What part about them made them your favorites? And then go from there.

This is subjective, but:

1) There doesn’t need to be a Hannibal Lector or Joker, or even a punch-clock villain, but there has to be something or someone that creates conflict for the main character.

2) You can write whatever you want! Seriously! But if you’re writing for readers, they want drama/conflict.

3) Depends what you mean by “later,” but the conflict should at least be present by the time you get to 1/4 in. Can slowly build, but introducing the conflict late is no bueno.

If there were one word to describe what makes a book “good,” it’d be: drama. (Every type of book has dramatic bones.)

David Mamet said once—and this was regarding the screen, but I think still applies to fiction books: “If there isn’t drama, it’s just information, and no one tunes in for information—there’s non-fiction for that.”

1) No, though there do need to be stakes, and a challenge. They do not have to be large stakes or an extreme challenge, but there needs to be something for the characters to do/overcome.

2) Yes, as others have mentioned, this is called slice-of-life. The MC can be a rancher raising a variety of cute fantasy animals to be pets, or who produce stuff that can be harvested without harming them, like wool or something.

3) semi-cozy is a thing, where you have a lot of slice-of-life with occasional short arcs of higher stakes things.

That last one is what I am writing in serial format, with about 3000 readers across two web sites, and a contract with Podium to convert the first three volumes of my serial into books and audio books.

What compels you to read a book? Grabs your interest and holds it? Satisfying until the end? Write that book. The rest will sort itself out through edits.

For me, liking the main character(s) helps a lot with engagement. If I don't like the person who's narrating, then it's hard to focus/care on what the they care about.

When you create a world and characters people emotionally invest in and want to visit

1: No.

2: I'd need more clarification of the question. Do you mean one hundred percent conflict-free happiness from beginning to end? If so, I'd say no.

3: Every book needs conflict. Almost every scen needs conflict. But conflict doesn't need to mean suspense or exploding helicopters. It can be a character trying to figure out how to successfully prepare the pot roast that failed last time.

A good book is a book that is enjoyable to read

1. no

2. yes, but it helps if he/she is very imperfect

3. it can come wherever you want, or not at all. Hard to write without some obstacles though.

You have to start by reading. You'll find stuff that's done in ways you like, and you'll start to find your own voice and style as a result. Then you practice the making of things you like by writing to the sky, and not for an audience. That will show you who you are as a writer, and where you need to improve. "Good" is subjective, so you're trying to be the best version of your writer self and not a sub-par version of another writer.

First of all, the market will tell you. There's no way to know for sure.

1. does there need to be a villain? - no, but there needs to be an opposing force for the protagonist.
2. can the book be about a character just enjoying life? - yes, but there needs to be opposition to this. A challenge to overcome. But it can be a fun challenge.
3. can conflict come later in the book or does it always have to be suspenseful? - It has be suspenseful if you're writing a suspenseful novel.

There are a lot of different books and different genres out there. Write the book, edit the book and see what happens next.

You’re probably right it’s not about writing skill, it’s about signal. Founders hesitate because clarity, originality, and conviction matter more than output, and posting feels risky when thinking isn’t fully formed yet.

Completeness. Conflict and challenge for the characters. Coherence.

With villains, conflict, etc, you're talking about the parts. What makes a book good is more about the sum of its parts.

1. Watch out for that snake.

2. Yikes, poisonous reptile dead ahead!

The parts (words) in those two sentences are entirely different, but the sum of them is "good". As with anything subjective, it depends on the audience and context. The sum is good to the audience of "people about to step on a snake who don't want to". The audience gains great insight after hearing/reading it.

A good book provodes a new perspective to the right person at the right time. The nuts and bolts of how that is achieved is best summed up by the idiom "there's more than one way to skin a cat".

Those things depends on what genre you're writing in.

At the end of the day, a good book needs to be compelling. It needs to make you care.

I’ve been a submissions reader for a lit mag before, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen stories that were perfect grammar and proper writing but I said no to because I simply could not bring myself to care about the characters or situation.

To answer your second question, if the character is just enjoying life, why do I care about them? What makes them compelling? What makes me specifically want them out of all the people in the world to have a good life? What investment do I have in their success?

Because at the end of the day, I’m not going to invest my time and energy into reading a book or story about someone or something I don’t care about.

What conflict does is it gives you a reason to care. It creates empathy because by getting to see the character grow and change, you feel closer to them. Now the reader is rooting for them because there’s emotional investment in the story. I want xyz character to get a happy ending the way I want my best friend or sibling to. Or alternatively- I want xyz character to fail the way I want the person who hurt my best friend to fail or suffer.

Everyone has their own idea of what makes a book good. For some it means an escapist fantasy where they can be in another world for a bit, for others it's deep themes that makes them wiser, and yet another group will say that it's all about feeling emotions.

The broadest possible interpretations would be that a good book is one that creates value for its target audience. If you want to be an author it's incredibly important that you figure out why you like to read and then make sure your book is providing that value.

Also, you seem to have a lot of questions that start with "must" and the answer to all of them is no, there are never any musts, only guidelines. There are plenty of stories out there with no villains, that are just about slice of life, and that have low conflict. That's the entire iyashikei genre for example.

You need to read. This is the answer to SO many questions on this sub.

1. No. Technically you don't even need an antagonist or rival either.
2. Yes, but the character will need to be interesting.
3. Conflict needs to be organic if no antagonist. There need to be stakes somewhere, a goal for the Protagonist, or a problem that needs resolution.

Examples: Animal Crossing has a good example, even being a video game. The conflict is paying the loan off. There's no pressure for it, but it's always there. Started Valley, you need to make your Grandfather proud.

I'm using video games because I don't read a lot of slice of life books, but play a lot of slice of life games.

Characters and conflict. No conflict no story. Your central character must want something (figure that out), then spend 300 plages stopping them from getting it.

What are your ten favourite books? How would you answer those questions with those books in mind?

Would you love your book if you were the reader?