Follow Friday and 'Stardust'

It's Friday and it is the day that my exams officially end! Oh freedom, sweet freedom! All I am going to do for the next weeks is laze about, read, eat, blog, drink, sleep and sleep some more. But before then, it is time to get this post full of memes up! Follow Friday is hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee and they have chosen a terribly difficult question for today's post:

How important is good writing to you? In an ideal world, a book would be beautifully written AND have great character development, plot, etc. But in the real world, which do you prefer: (1) Great characters and plot with lousy writing or (2) Middling character development and plot but gorgeous writing?

This is such a difficult question! I WANT BOTH! (perfect excuse to use this gif). In all seriousness, I feel like you can't have one without the other. This might sound rude but I feel that an author who puts a lot of thought into his characters and his plot also writes beautifully because he cares. On the other hand, an author who doesn't seem to be that interested in developing and delving into their own story usually won't write that well as well.

I do have to add a caveat here, there are some amazing authors out there who self-publish and therefore don't go through the professional editing stage. This is why I can, occasionally, forgive spelling mistakes as long as they are an exception. However, spelling mistakes are different from lousy writing. Some people just don't seem to be able to write nicely, but to be honest, most of those people never really make it to the end of novel-writing.

Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Billy over at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. 

When you view someone's profile, what information do you like to see?

If by "profile" you mean someone's Google profile, then I have to be honest and say I hardly ever look at them. I tend to sometimes look at the About Me section, but I spend more attention looking at the blog itself. I know from experience that it is terribly hard to write about yourself in those kind of profiles because I always end up having very deep thoughts about who I really am.

Book Beginnings and Friday 56 are hosted by Rose City Reader and Freda's Voice respectively.  This week I'm using Neil Gaiman's Stardust. I absolutely love the Claire Danes movie, it makes me laugh, it at times makes me cry. So I'm really excited about this book.

BB:

'There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire.And while that is, as beginnings go, not entirely novel (for every tale about every young man there ever was or will be could start in a similar manner) there was much about this young man and what happened to him that was unusual, although even he never knew the whole of it.'p.1

I like this beginning. Gaiman is really playing up the whole fairytale aspect while also luring the reader in by promising that there is a lot more there as well!

F56:

'Billy lowered his head and ran, headlong, at the unicorn, as if he were about to butt it with his forehead. The unicorn lowered its head also, and Billy the Innkeeper met his unfortunate end.' p.56

I hope this doesn't really count as a spoiler, but I personally know Billy isn't a big character. I do know he's absolutely hilarious in the film though! I love the idea of this unicorn that just pops up randomly. There should definitely be more unicorns in novels.

So, how about you? What do you think is the most important: style or character development? And do you look at people's profiles?