Judging Novels: Is it better to judge the literary merit of a novel according to the quality of what is written, or according to the process by which it was written?

This may seem like a silly question, because isn’t what is meant by literary merit the quality of what is written?

But judgment of quality is subjective. For example, Dickens is now often cited as a great writer. But at one time he was not taken seriously. And some former winners of prestigious literary prizes are now virtually forgotten. In short, you cannot make an objective determination of the quality of a novel by what people think of it.

What about the process by which a novel was written? If a novel was written by strictly following the rules for characters, plot, style, and themes of a particular genre, surely it cannot be judged a great novel, no matter how enjoyable. But what about literary novels? What makes a literary novel great?

The beginning of my approach is to ask: What do most great writers of literary novels have in common? What I have found in my study of over one hundred great writers is that they all show signs of having a writing process which involves a normal version of multiple personality.

But since I infer that over ninety percent of all novelists have a normal version of multiple personality—and that would include both the great and the mediocre—how would knowing their writing process help to distinguish them?

Moreover, how would anyone know a particular writer’s process, especially since even writers themselves have only a partial awareness of it?

I don’t have the answer. But at least I do have the question.