The conundrum of good writing

This is something that I think all writers think about from time to time. Actually, scratch that. I think it’s something at least most writers think about quite a lot of the time.

Namely, is our writing actually any good? And how would we know if it is/isn’t?

The issue of good writing is an interesting one because good writing is generally so subjective. Different people respond to different things, and while one person might think a particular book is the best thing ever written, someone else might find it dry and dull. It can be hard to reach agreement.

For instance, is something good because the use of language is exemplary, or is it because it has a cracking plot and well-drawn characters? I suspect that there are a whole range of answers to this. If you’re someone who goes for plot, that’s probably how you’ll judge writing. If you’re someone who loves literary language, that’ll be where your focus is.

The trouble is that there are so many different ways of measuring what’s ‘good’ that as a writer, it can be difficult to know exactly where you fit. For instance, you might know that you’re not the best linguist ever, but you also know that you’re good at creating suspense. It’s all a matter of personal judgement.

Yet the commonality among writers is that we all want to be good. For most writers, I think that being a good writer is more important than being a popular writer, but even so, good and popular are still intertwined. Does something become popular because it is good, or is it popular for some other reason? Does something count as good just because a lot of people like it, or does it need to be technically brilliant as well?

This is an issue that I suspect could drive us all mad if we think about it too much, so I’ll end this little ramble here, expect to say this. Different people have different views on what makes something good; writing isn’t a science. It’s probably for the best that it’s not.