Either in content or in style, in subject matter or in rhetorical approach, fiction that is too much like other fiction is bad by definition. However paradoxical it sounds, good writing as a set of strictures (that is, when the writing is good and nothing more) produces most bad fiction.
Brain Pickings quotes, among others, Samuel Delany on the difference between merely good writing and truly talented writing.
Of course, talent is less than half the battle, but that’s a post for a different day.
