What Makes Good Writing?

What you see isn't always what you get.

Good writing is hard to define, as it can be very subjective. What I like isn’t always necessarily a piece that is structurally or grammatically correct; but good writing to me makes the reader feel something they wouldn’t normally connect to. It’s a combination of many elements that make a good piece work as a whole.

For starters, the writer needs to have passion for what they’re writing about, or at least understand and support their writing. As an experienced reader, I can tell when a screenplay is written half heartedly or an introduction is rushed before the essay is printed. If a writer can’t put in all their effort to put out their best work, the writing won’t always reflect their vision, even if the writer has talent. In popular series or trilogies, sometimes books are being rushed to publish and the final copy can’t be reviewed as efficiently as it should be. I’ve found that The Hunger Games and Divergent both had strong beginnings, but by the third books the writing wasn’t as good because it felt like the writer only cared about finishing the trilogy before it became irrelevant in order to make money. In comparison, a series like Harry Potter was meticulously written from start to finish before it was even released.

What fueled J. K. Rowling to write the seven-book best seller was an idea. A writer may not have a complete vision, but as long as they have a concept or an idea in mind, the writing has a general direction to go in. When there isn’t something to build a story on, often the writing is all over the place in an attempt to find a thread to follow, and the writer hopes that an idea will come to them as they write (which does not always happen). Getting an inspiration from another novel, from an experience or a new story, from ANYWHERE, is a place to start when writing. Most importantly, writing is good when the writer themselves sees it as good. Of course when something is first written it’s not pristine- it’s rough around the edges, it’s got a few footprints, it’s a puzzle with some pieces missing- but when the writer gets it to place where they feel confident about what they’ve written, that’s when it feels special.

Unfortunately, even good writing isn’t safe from criticism. One of my favourites, A Clockwork Orange, written by Anthony Burgess, was massively misinterpreted after the movie was released without the inclusion of the final chapter. This led to the author resenting his own work- the famous novella written in only three weeks- despite the cult following of people understood the meaning based on the whole story. Despite the author liking what he had written for decades, he grew to dislike it because of how audiences reacted. But even though not everyone had Burgess’ same vision- they still took something away from his words.

What makes good writing is the feeling it emits. It’s what people can see past the words on the page, what they can read between the lines. It’s not just that the main character’s grandfather died- it’s that the reader can relate and understand what the character is going through. It’s not just that an elf boy has to find a way to earn his wings- it’s that the teenager reading it can think about what they wanted when they were a child compared to who they are now. It’s when the characters aren’t characters and the stories aren’t just fiction- it’s when the reader can really feel that writing is successful.