What makes someone a “good writer”?
What makes a writer a good writer?
Part of the answer to that question is that a good writer produces manuscripts that are well written. But that leads to another question: what makes a manuscript well written? What makes a manuscript “good writing”?
One way to assess “good writing” is to ask whether it serves the purpose for which it was created. In this story I want to pursue that idea a little in the direction of “what kinds of purposes do writers have?” This isn’t the only way to evaluate writing, but it is an evaluation that is often ignored.
What’s the problem?
In an article titled “Why Academics Stink at Writing,” Steven Pinker closes by arguing, “In writing badly, we are wasting each other’s time, sowing confusion and error, and turning our profession into a laughingstock.”
But none of those problems strike me as particularly compelling.
Are there academics wasting time on confusing writing? Yes, but how much of that confusion is due to the difficulty of the underlying questions and how much is due to poor writing?
Are there papers that sow confusion and error? Yes, but that’s as much a product of bad reasoning as it is of bad writing: we can sow confusion and error by writing poorly or by reasoning poorly. For example, I would argue that Pinker’s article sows error by suggesting that poor style is the big problem in academic writing, when the real problem behind bad academic writing is poor reasoning. (Sure, bad prose can confuse good reasoning, but good prose can never salvage poor reasoning. People who have reasoned clearly are more likely to write clearly as a result of the clear reasoning.)
Is poor writing responsible for academia being turned into a laughingstock? No. Poor writing may contribute to efforts to make academia a laughingstock, but as Pinker himself describes in his book Enlightenment Now!, there are anti-intellectual political, social forces outside academia that benefit if they can turn academia into a laughingstock. Even if all academics were great writers, there would still be people in the world doing their best to turn academia into a mockery. The quality of the prose used in highly specialized academic journals has little to do with that. Fox News doesn’t need poorly written journal articles to get people to reject academics; all they need is a soundbite.
The real problem
There is important knowledge that is being lost due to bad writing, but it’s a very different kind of bad writing than Pinker is talking about. And it’s a kind of “bad writing” that is not limited to academia.
The real problem of “bad writing” is all that is lost because so many people struggle to write.
The struggle to write is a huge problem in academia, where nearly half of people who become doctoral candidates fail to become doctors because of the difficulty of writing. And where aspiring professors fail to get jobs or promotions because they don’t write enough.
But the struggle to write is also a larger human problem: people struggle to express themselves and develop themselves. They want to share their ideas and stories, but writing is a barrier.
Difficulties that arise due to bad perspectives on writing, rob the world of human insight in academia, entertainment, and the arts.
Writing is hard
No one becomes a good writer without working at it. I believe in the necessity of practice. I also believe in the positive benefits of practice, even when the writing itself doesn’t go well.
But writing becomes a lot harder when you’re going about it wrong.
If you’re putting your efforts into the wrong thing, then it’s much harder to benefit from the efforts you put in.
If your writing practice isn’t producing enough benefits, it’s hard to keep it going. And if you don’t keep it going, then your personal brilliance is lost.
What’s your purpose in writing?
There are lots of reasons to write, and most writers have several. We write to share our stories, to educate, to entertain, to advance in our careers, and, if we’re lucky, to gain fame and fortune. Immortality, of sorts, if that’s what you’re looking for.
This story grew out of my response to the idea that some writers are writing to impress others. Pinker and other academics complain (quite reasonably) about academic writers who choose difficulty language to impress others with their brilliance. But that’s a small slice of writers, I think. And even for the writers who are trying to impress, that’s a small slice of motivation.
Writers who want to impress others also want jobs and recognition; they don’t just want to impress, they want to impress so they’ll get something.
And, flipping that around, people who write because they want something — someone who writes to educate and help others, for example — also want to impress people, at least to the extent that people feel that it’s worth their time to read the piece, and maybe apply the ideas.
When I write to help other writers, my ultimate goal isn’t to impress, but I would like to impress you enough that you believe it’s worth trying what I suggest.
The most difficult part of writing
The hardest part of writing is having something worth saying. If you don’t have that, it’s hard to do any good writing. This is where the sense of purpose comes in. The clearer your sense of purpose, or your sense of your many overlapping purposes, the easier it is to find words to say.
It’s not hard to write to your friend to say “Let’s get together this weekend.” That’s a clear sense of purpose. And it’s also done in a context where the writer isn’t worried about criticism.
When the message gets more complex, and more doubtful, however, it’s hard to figure out what we want to say. Put that into a context where you’re worried about “good style,” and the work of writing becomes much harder.
Style interferes with Content
Content is hard. And it is the top priority. Many writers, however, start worrying about style before they even know what they want to say. That’s a huge barrier.
If you’re trying to figure out what your academic argument is, or your fictional plot and characterization, or your poetic expression, worrying that your language isn’t stylish enough is a distraction.
None of this is to say that style is unimportant. Style is important. But the ideas are more important. And the sharing of ideas is more important, even if the style is rough. Better a well-reasoned, poorly written argument than a beautifully written but poorly reasoned one.
Knowing what you want to say is an important form of self-knowledge
Diversity offers all sorts of new and exciting ideas. Diversity, however, does not grow out of people sitting passively listening to others; diversity grows from people trying to understand and express themselves.
Good writing is writing that helps you understand and achieve your purposes.
There’s a lot more to say about “good writing,” and what it can mean. But it starts with you, the writer, expressing yourself and what you care about.
Good writing has a purpose and fulfills that purpose.
This essay was originally published on Medium. Check out my work there!
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