Did my title make you cringe? It should have, because that's a big grammar no-no. I actually just imagined every grammar stickler out there convulsing in pain because I used an adjective to modify a verb. It sounds so...juvenile. Unprofessional. Horrendous!
There's something about quality writing that fools you into thinking that it came effortlessly. Somehow, many poor souls assume that a truly great writer just wakes up one morning with a flash of inspiration, perhaps from a dream, a spontaneous epiphany, or even a personal observation/experience, and somehow gets it all down on paper and wa-la! A Pulitzer-worthy story.
But good writing doesn't materialize in one sitting. A good story isn't conceived from a single mind or place. The best writing is a culmination of various thoughts, sights, smells, experiences, people, conversations, dreams, and values. All these elements, however, are organized and shaped according to the author's choice of audience. And all of that comes with effort.
I consider good writing to be any piece that keeps a reader's mind active while reading it. President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, for example, is engaging, challenging, and expressive of the author's views. It also achieves its purpose of informing and moving the audience; it basically has all the components of good writing. Another example of excellent writing is the Harry Potter series, mainly because it's a wonderful model of a story coming alive on paper, without the need for illustration. Rowling is a creator of a fantasy, a second world that has become real to her loyal followers. But why is Harry Potter good writing? Because it's not just someone's imagination compressed into a book; it's a whole web of characters, stories, dialogue, and places familiar and unreal. More importantly, it's written in such a way that is catered to all readers.
My favorite example of good writing is Hemingway's novella, The Old Man and the Sea. He says a million things with a few words. Concise writing, as we all know, is not formulaic, and not easy to achieve. Hemingway just happens to be the awesome, undefeated god of concision. The Old Man and the Sea also exemplifies great writing because it's reflective of its author. Hemingway was a simple and masculine man; so is his writing. When the essence of any author is embedded in his/her writing, I consider it to be truly great.
There are so many other works of literature and poetry and music that are examples of good writing, but for the sake of my audience and their time, I will muse about them on my own.
The one thing that always sets apart good writing from mediocre writing is the amount of variety. Writing shouldn't be the same throughout; it should have a shape, because good writing doesn't just consist of words---it's also made up of rhythm, structure, tone, style, and content. If a writer can find a good balance among all these components, the writing has a shape. There are changes in paragraph length, sentence structure, and punctuation. Good writing also varies in tone and mood, while keeping consistent voice throughout.
I believe that good writing is not a matter of pure genius, but rather a matter of pure effort. A brilliant idea can't be translated onto a page without the right words. Finding the right words is hard work--a difficulty I face daily as an aspiring journalist. Producing good writing means sacrificing time, because the longest part of the whole process is the proofreading. After the first draft, you must purge your mind of all pride in order to make significant changes. Even better is when the writing goes through many other pairs of eyes other than yours. The best constructive criticism, after all, comes from a third-person perspective. In short, once you crank out the pages, you must go through a rigorous editing process to make your writing the best it can be.
Most importantly, any good writer must be willing to learn from the best and worst. You have to know what not to do as much as learning all the right things to do. Whether it's going back to all your old writing and having the sudden urge to slap yourself from self-humiliation, or reading a terribly-written newspaper article, or actually reading Fifty Shades of Grey without the intention of getting horny, you learn from not only your own mistakes, but also from other writers' mistakes. From there, you can develop ways to make your writing better, and eventually something that others enjoy reading.
In reality, there really is no "right" or "wrong" to good writing. Good writing, at its core, exists when there is a connection and inexplicable understanding between the writer and the reader. When that connection forms, the writer not only achieves his or her purpose, but the reader also receives the wonderful benefits of reading good writing.
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