Good Writing Is

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Good writing is many things, and you won’t often know until you’ve wrestled it yourself and pleaded like Jacob, “I won’t stop until you bless me!” Until you’ve wadded up a few hundred pages and given up on all the stories you began, only to be socked with inspiration when you least expected it.

I am a writing coach who approaches other writers carefully, because I still need good coaching myself. But William Zinsser said that “writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there,” and I have thrown away many, many pages. So maybe that’s a qualification?

I’ve learned that good writing is more discerning in what it tosses than in what it keeps.

Good writing is also clear.

It’s more important that a reader understands my sentence than be wowed by the sweeping words I use. C. S. Lewis said:

“I sometimes think that writing is like driving a sheep down the road. If there’s any gate open to the left or the right the reader will most certainly go into it.”

Unclear jargon can lose my reader in a field of thought they were never meant to cross into.

Good writing is concise.

I don’t want to use ten cheap words where I could use one, well-chosen word. Instead of ran loudly or walked proudly, I’ll try verbs like thundered or swaggered. Concise writing is clean and skips along, because it isn’t slowed by too many adjectives or adverbs.

It’s concrete.

I’ve learned to love nouns. People, places, and things appeal to my reader’s eyes, ears, and hands. A store that feels “big” and “cluttered” is so because of the high ceilings and fluorescent lights and shelves of paperbacks, cutlery, and lampshades. (Besides, stringing together those types of lists is just fun.)

And good writing is colorful.

I long to be myself when I write, and for you to be yourself, too. If we use words we enjoy and tell stories we know and love, we’ll be original and engaging without trying too hard.

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There are others, of course, because good writing isn’t a trick or hack. Rather, it’s something to be found over time, after returning to the page again and again, both in the bouts of inspiration and the long, uninspired wrestling. In coaching, I can always tell a writer who’s been through the mud of it, because their writing comes out clear and strong and themself— sort of how Jacob came out from the wrestling match with a new name and a vision of God.

Because above all, good writing is unto him.

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