yes

Boring, tedious, repetitive description.

Yeah, I don't feel that this question is as easy (for me, anyhow) to answer as many people think it should be. A lot of people make the mistake of injecting their own prejudices into their judgment over whether or not writing is good. Anyone who goes through the comments posted under the less popular books on Amazon knows what I mean. A lot of people use words/phrases like "masturbatory", "self-indulgent", "self-conscious" "gimmicky", "nonsense", "showy", "preachy", and on and on, as if these are 'qualities' that are supposed to demean and invalidate the work. In the end, all these phrases mean is that the person who uses them is offended by writing that goes into those areas.

What's important, always, is that the author is honest to his or her self, and is writing what he or she wants, or needs, to write. Or what she CAN write. Period. Beyond the most basic elements of craft, anybody who tries to add qualifying standards to what makes writing "good" or "bad" is just polluting the culture.

This being said: In the most basic terms, "good" writing is writing that is consciously and relentlessly honed in order to effect, within a certain range conceived by the author (since every reader will interpret a work differently), some sort of psychological change within the reader's mind (no matter how tiny or profound). That's the intellectual explanation, I guess.

In other words, basically: Good writers NEED to develop a strong sense of human psychology, regarding how the human mind interprets words and transforms them into sensation and ideas. This is done most effectively by studying YOURSELF - one of the main reasons why I find it so terrible and ridiculous that so many readers will try to condemn an artist's work with phrases like "self-indulgent", or "masturbatory".

Kathy Acker has said in the past that when she began to write, she set out to write 'as badly as possible'. And you can see that in her early works she wasn't as adept as she became later on. It seems apparent that early on she knew that she was unpracticed (or "bad") and that therefore instead of being embarrassed by this 'fact', she would embrace it, and use it to her advantage. "Writing badly", therefore, became a technique in itself, a manner of self expression, just as in punk music "playing badly" made a certain statement.

Over time she was able to stylize her writing so that it became more effective in conveying certain sensations and ideas. Why does Kathy Acker have such a broad and, more importantly, highly-respectful audience? Why is she so revered? I don't think I have to answer that question for anybody.

How about pleasant or painful resonance?

I was recently forced to read a book bogged down with unnecessary historical references woven into a regurgitated mass of tired material involving murder and mystery in a small town. In this instance I would say that bad writing is worst when self-published by someone with unshakable confidence in his genius, despite the fact that they are mutilating the English language page by page.

I find the whole idea of this really fascinating.
Nobody, I suspect delibrately sets out to write badly. They make their best effort, work whatever magic they have and it works or it doesn't. Okay so there are certain techniques that limit the poorness of your work but where does that spark of inspiration come from???

Personally I hate stories that hang on an outrageous coincedence but I know that in the real world these coincedences happen (surprisingly often)

So, I think that basicaly, you like something or you don't.

Oh, try not to be too critical of others they are trying their best (I hope)