From Bad Writing to Good Writing

Writing is often an undervalued skill. We assume that everyone can write well if they put their mind to it, but this is a dangerous assumption to make. There are many factors that contribute to making good writing good—and bad writing bad—and it takes time and effort to master this craft.

Everyone has their own perception of a "good writer." So when it comes to writing, what is the difference between good and bad?

While good writing is subjective, there are some essential elements that can make or break an article. You can write a great blog post or a terrible one, just as you can write a great novel or a terrible one. Writing well takes practice, but it's worth the effort.

Writing is like the weather: Sometimes it's stormy, sometimes it's clear. But one thing you can always be sure of is that the weather will change—and so will your writing.

No matter how much experience you have with writing, there will always be a time when your writing runs dry, or becomes muddled and cloudy, or feels like a torrential downpour of words. But just as quickly as a storm rolls in, it can roll out again—and just as quickly as your writing can become unclear and muddy, it can become clear and easy to follow again

Good vs Bad

Good writing is clear, concise, and engaging. It gets the reader's attention and then holds it through to the end. It uses language that is natural, accessible, and interesting. Good writing is like a window pane. When you're looking through it, you should be able to see clearly but not necessarily notice that it's there. Good writing is transparent—it gets out of the way and lets the meaning shine through.

Bad writing can be harder to identify. It comes in many forms: confusing sentence structure, passive voice, poor word choice, ill-fitting references or quotes, excessive jargon and acronyms, choppy sentences. Writing that is badly written can often be recognized because it is hard to understand.  Bad writing is like a window full of smudges and smears. You can still see out of it, but you have to work harder than you should have to.

Bad writing is like a broken window. It distracts from the otherwise harmonious and productive life you could be leading. When you're staring at a run-on sentence, all you can think about is how to fix it. When you're reading an article with too many big words, your brain turns into mush.

How do you make your writing good?

By simplifying it. Not by dumbing it down, but by getting to the point. If you're trying to write something that informs people about an experience you've had—say, a trip to Istanbul—it's not very helpful to write about every single thing that happened while you were there: what time you woke up each day, where each meal took place, and so on. That kind of information is better suited for a diary or a journal entry—if anyone will ever read it at all!

Many people think that good writing is always complicated. That's not true! Complicated ideas can be expressed simply if they're organized properly. Good writers organize their thoughts before they write them down so that they can convey their ideas with clarity and precision.

In Conclusion

Bad writing is a problem. It's a problem for writers, because it takes them much longer to write, and it's a problem for readers, because they have to wade through the bad writing in order to find the good stuff.

If you want to be a writer, you have to accept that there are going to be things people don't like about your work—things you don't like about your work! But that doesn't mean you're bad at writing; it just means you have room to grow and improve.