The other day, someone asked me what makes for a good writer. We were discussing Jonah Goldberg’s new venture and I pointed out that the big challenge they will face is finding writers that are any good. It’s not so much that their opinions are banal and lacking in authenticity. It’s that the people writing for these sites are dull writers. The whole space is full of people, who should be writing technical manuals. Almost everyone with writing chops has been chased off by the loathsome carbuncles of Conservative Inc..
The question though, is why are some writers more interesting than others? Mark Steyn is not offering many unique insights, but he makes general commentary about the political scene fun and interesting. He is a great wordsmith. Steve Sailer is not a great wordsmith, but he often makes great observations about the world. In other words, you can be an interesting writer without being brilliant or a great wordsmith, but you better do something that gives the reader a payoff for having read your stuff.
Thinking about it, what often makes a writer good, is that they avoid the things that all bad writers seem to share. In this sense, “good” is not a state in itself, but simply not being in the state we call “bad.” A great wordsmith is further away from the state of bad writing than someone who is just an average writer. That average writer can appear to be much better, by offering keen insights and clever observations. The path to becoming a good writer, therefore, starts with avoiding the things that define a bad writer.
The most common trait of bad writers, it seems, is they write about themselves. Unless you are an international man of mystery, you’re not that interesting. No one is. Bad writers, always seem to think they are the most interesting people they know. This is what made former President Obama such a boring speaker. No matter the subject, his speech was going to be a meditation on his thoughts and feelings about the subject. It became a game of sorts to count how many times he referenced himself in a speech.
That’s the hallmark of bad writing. Instead of focusing on the subject, the writer focuses on himself, which suggests he does not know the material. Even when relating an experience or conversation, the good writer makes himself a secondary character in the story, not the focus. Bad writers are always the hero of everything they write, as if they are trying to convince the reader of something about themselves. Good writers avoid this and focus on the subject of their writing.
Now, in fairness, there is a division between the sexes on this one. Female writers only write about themselves. It’s why autoethnography is wildly popular with the Xirl science types on campus. They finally have a complicated sounding name for what comes natural to them. Presumably, female readers like reading this stuff, so there may be a Xirl exception to this rule. The fairer sex is wired to understand the world, particularly human relations, by observing the reactions of other women to that person or thing.
Another common habit of the bad writer is to use five paragraphs when one paragraph will do the trick. One of the first rules they used to teach children about writing is the rule of women’s swimsuits. Good writing is like a woman’s swimsuit, in that it is big enough to cover the important parts, but small enough to make things interesting. This is a rule that applies to all writing and one bad writers tend to violate. They will belabor a point with unnecessary examples or unnecessary explication.
Bad writers are also prone to logical fallacies and misnomers. There’s really no excuse for this, as there are lists of common logical fallacies and, of course, searchable on-line dictionaries in every language. In casual writing, like blogging or internet commentary, this is tolerable. When it shows up in a professional publication, it suggest the writer and the editor are not good at their jobs. A brilliantly worded comparison between two unrelated things is still a false comparison. It suggests dishonesty on the part of the writer.
Certain words seem to be popular with bad writers. The word “dialectic” has become an acid test for sloppy reasoning and bad writing. The word “elide” is another one that is popular with bad writers for some reason. “Epistemology” is another example, popular with the legacy conservative writers. Bad writers seem to think cool sounding words or complex grammar will make their ideas cleverer. Orwell’s second rule is “Never use a long word where a short one will do.” It’s the commonly abused by bad writers.
Finally, another common feature of bad writing is the disconnect between the seriousness of subject and how the writer approaches the subject. Bad writers, like Jonah Goldberg, write about serious topics, using pop culture references and vaudeville jokes. On the other hand, feminists write about petty nonsense as if the fate of the world hinges on their opinion. The tone should always match the subject. Bad writers never respect the subject they are addressing or their reader’s interest in the subject.
No doubt there are more complete and concise descriptions of bad writing than this quick list of observations. The pedants reading this sees all writing as bad writing, as everything they read violates at least one picayune rule they cherish. To normal people, though, good writing is mostly the absence of bad writing and bad writing is the violation of some basic rules of written communication. Therefore, if you want to be a good writer, you should first avoid being a bad writer. That gets you at least halfway home.
Take a gander at the writing of Linda Alcoff for the quintessential example of unreadable litter box lining.
Not to be pedantic but… “The pedants reading this sees all writing as bad writing, “
Never use a sesquipedalianism when a laconicism could be substituted commensurably.
Read your work aloud, if it sounds off to you it’s probably bad writing. If you wouldn’t say something that way, don’t write it that way.
Now I’m really curious, Z – did you ever read Instauration back in the day?
Good writing is simply speaking – with do-over privileges.
Actually writing like-they-speak is a common mistake of rookie writers. I take your point however.
Eric Hoffer once said something to the effect that there was no idea that could not be expressed in 200 words or less.
This is a wonderful example of the kind of bad writing Zman has described…
https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/10/william-f-buckley-1965-new-york-mayor-campaign/
Jonah gets lost in the woods of his own self-perceived cleverness. One almost wonders if he has a mirror in front of his laptop as he writes. And his preoccupation with coprophilia is disturbing.
How to be a bad writer? Write about gender studies… In their vernacular.
Z: “A brilliantly worded comparison between two unrelated things is still a false comparison. It suggests dishonesty on the part of the writer.” For the person with even a moderate knack for words the temptation to manipulate is everpresent. It really takes a solid character not to dupe people when it’s so easy. And if a writer is too obvious about it, there’s always an editor to fancy it up proper.
I’m not sure following. Got an example?
Interesting inversion of the common trope about families. All good writers are different, but all bad writers are the same.
Jonah Goldberg and Ta-Nehisi Coates may write about wildly different things, but they do both have the same soporific style whose defining characteristic is navel-gazing.
It’s also helpful to note that good writers are frequently motivated by a desire to inform or educate, often with the aim of conveying wisdom, which is beneficial to all. The worst writers are propagandists who merely wish to infect the weak-minded with agenda-driven messaging and ultimately achieve a hive mentality in the victims. The former should be encouraged, the latter should become extinct.
Re: Jonah Goldberg’s new venture … isn’t the problem finding readers for the venture? How promising is the prospective market for Jonah Goldberg//Steve Hayes political writing?
Re: Jonah Goldberg’s new venture … isn’t the primary problem finding readers? How big is the market for Steve Hayes/Jonah Goldberg opinion-writing?
Didn’t you violate your own rules with the word “picayune” or am I just a lowbrow?
I found a used copy of Buckley’s Jewlers Eye, and I do not remember being distracted or impressed by the vocabulary, but rather simply found the ideas blah, just blah.
Is picayune really a highbrow word? I always thought it was a provincial throwback to something like Huck Finn. I’ve only seen it used to hint at a low class background but it’s so archaic that it actually comes off as refined.
“Orwell’s second rule is “Never use a long word where a short one will do.” It’s the commonly abused by bad writers.”
This is how you can easily deduce that the left, SJW/NPC left in particular, are intellectually bankrupt to go with their moral bankruptcy. You won’t FIND an article written by them that doesn’t use multi-syllabic nonsense words to seem more erudite when in reality they could have said the same sentence with probably 1/4 the amount of syllables.
It is the hallmark of the intellectual charlatan in fact. For an absurdly egregious (there are my big words) of this the latest STEM class lunacy from Ontario is a textbook example.
https://tomwoods.com/jordan-peterson-thinks-this-may-be-the-worst-sentence-ever-written/
Try listening to NPR for a few minutes. A verbal vomitorium.
I can’t listen to NPR anymore because their unctuous voices make me want to punch someone.
It’s rare that I will automatically buy a book based on the author. Exempting authors that have been dead for sixty years. One exception is Victor David Hanson. I have enjoyed all of his books, and I’ve yet to read one of his articles I could disagree with.
Another bad trait is trying to be overly funny. Or capping each thought with something cute. Call it the Goldberg crutch. There’s a few talented guys who can write in a constantly humorous style and pull it off. But unless you’re of the caliber of a young P.J. O’rourke it shouldn’t be your go-to style. Problem is these naturally funny guys make it look easy, so everyone thinks they can do it. Time magazine shouldn’t be trying.
Women, old men and Jews should tread carefully with the funny. Women’s ‘wit’ either lags 7 years behind or is so current it’s painful. Either way, it’s always borrowed. Old men…whatever, something happens to the brain. Jews have an odd silly streak. A recent post by Kunstler on the Oscar’s is a good example of both old-man and Jew humor wrapped into one. A representative line: “Glenn Close revealed that her gown contained four million beads and weighed forty pounds. I hope she donates it to the Clinton Foundation for HRC’s 2020 nomination acceptance speech.” BTW about the old-man humor, I’m not talking about any of you here. You guys are hilarious in ways you don’t even know.
Frip! Get off our lawn!
Glad you said “young P.J. O’rourke”. I loved Parliament of Whores. But he ceased to be funny years ago.
Don’t know what happened to him.
He got old.
He did me a big favor in the mid-2000s so I’ll always respect him and be grateful, but he kind of fossilized. He should he dissident right by now if he followed his instincts, but maybe having a late family did something to him (but not to Peter Brimelow).
I mean, Tom Wolfe was clearly diss-right among his friends, but kept it as private as he could.
Is constant name-dropping a characteristic of bad and boring writing?
Yeah. Steinbeck told me that personally one time.
O’Rourke sold out on immigration. The Irish are almost as bad as the Jews when it comes to Ellis Island romanticism, I mean, look at the Kennedys. As a recovering Irish American myself, I understand the impulse, but it’s utterly wrongheaded. The argument “Because the United States was good enough to let my ancestors in 150 years ago, we have to let Somalis destroy the country because feelz” is not exactly a coherent position. Also, to be fair, O’Rourke had cancer a few years ago, and that would tend to knock the humor out of anyone.
Let me say more about “big words”. WFB defended his use of obscure words by saying he didn’t use a “big word” – he used “The right word”. And I think that’s about right. There’s a big difference between using cant phrases like “racism” fascism” “the free market”, impenetrable jargon, or meaningless labels like “trumpism” or “authoritarianism” – and obscure words. BTW, ever notice how the Left and Conservative Inc. are ALWAYS labeling their opponents some sort of “ist” or “ism”? Its an old commie trick, designed to short-cut thought, a sort of sophisticated smear job. Again, this is completely different from using words like “Oxymoron” which WFB made popular. It does a job no other word can do – so concisely.
WFB was an excellent writer, which is why he sold so many books. Too bad people didn’t like his use of “Big words” – but that’s a minor flaw. Its impossible to figure out what standard is being used by Conservatism Inc. to hire writers. Its not wit, an interesting viewpoint, or prose style. Pretty much every writer at the Bulwark, or NRO is nothing more than adequate.
And nobody thought – 20 years ago – that Lowrey or Jonah were “great thinkers” who were going to lead NR into a new Golden age. They were just placeholders, until we found the new Buckley. But that never happened and everyone who WAS interesting was run off. Looking back, we can see that Obama’s election allowed Conservative Inc. to fool us much longer than it should have. Had McCain been elected, their globalist libertarian beliefs would’ve been made obvious. As it was, they were able to spend 8 years pretending to one of us and ranting about Obama.
Buckley was good when he was young. After about 1985,he started to become a parody of himself.
Well said. The use of big words is often showing off. Buckley probably knew he was doing just that. (“Let’s wow them with this baby!”)
“The most common trait of bad writers, it seems, is they write about themselves.”
An interesting comment from Mr. Z.
In perusing the biography section of Barnes & Noble you will see that it is chock full of autobiographies of folks that nobody knows or gives a rat’s ass about.
TV/movie actors and “news” types are well represented , which illustrates their conceit and ignorance; they are totally unaware that nobody cares to read about their lives and “struggles,” and are not important to anybody other than to themselves and perhaps to their tiny, cloistered club of equally unaware and arrogant associates in Manhattan, LA and DC.
Of course, I have seen Michelle “It’s-Been-A-Struggle” Obama’s bio there as well; which I have not bothered to flip thru,
In thinking about all she has accomplished – oh, that’s right, not a F’n thing – I guess I can see why she believes her life “struggles” (easily her favorite word when talking about herself) would be of interest to the world’s paramecium and other assorted single-cell life forms.
Clearly, she and her hubby just can’t get over themselves and truly deserve each other.
Jonah might be a decent writer in a different setting but everything he writes now is clearly written with someone (that pays him) looking over his shoulder. The best kind of writing tends to be from people who are not worried about blowback and are not writing for clicks.
Goldberg was fine when he was content to be the clownish goofball, mocking liberal piety. Then he started thinking of himself as an intellectual. He’s become increasingly shrill and his limitations have become more plain.
I flipped through Goldberg’s Suicide of the West at a BN a few months ago…he’s a poseur….my guess is he’s never read Hobbes, et. al, in fact, he’s not read much of anything substantial (anyone who relies as heavily as he does on pop culture probably hasn’t read much, not even in a desultory way…he’s a bubblegum pundit, so much intellectual lint.
From the interviews I’ve heard of Goldberg, he is well-versed in the intellectual history of conservatism. The problem is not a lack of knowledge but of subversion.
“…Goldberg…is well-versed in the intellectual history of conservatism. The problem is not a lack of knowledge but of subversion.”
He’s well-read. So what? He’s a pretentious twat and a hypocritical ideologue; any subversive element you see in Goldberg he just stumbled into along the way. No way it’s intentional. National Review is full of these types.
“The most common trait of bad writers, it seems, is they write about themselves. Unless you are an international man of mystery, you’re not that interesting. No one is. Bad writers, always seem to think they are the most interesting people they know. ”
Shhhhh…. don’t let generation princess hear you say this. Just think of what it’ll do their self-esteems!!!
i’m in the midwest where Jews are few and far between, at least relatively speaking. So in my experience, I have never met a Jew that didn’t tell me they were a Jew within the first few minutes of discussion. I don’t care if you are a Jew, but apparently, if you are one, you care if I do. My point is what you said about women writers applies to Jews also – like Jonah Goldberg.
Vegans do the same thing. What vegan Jews do probably doesn’t bear thinking about…
Read articles by Natalie Portman and you’ll know.
I grew up in a part of the country with a lot of Jews, and I noticed this as well. Indeed, I’ve known a couple of Jews who couldn’t go more than 10 minutes or so without bringing the conversation back to Judaica.
In my current virtual book tour I finally had to complain to management that too many of the questions were about me and not my novels. I paraphrased Pope Pius XIII: “I am nobody! Only my stories and characters are important!”
Being a woman she admitted she did not understand what I was saying.
Another great rule, learned here:
Respect your reader.
(Write as if you would be the one reading it for the first time.)
That’s my rule. I write what I like to read.
I note that he didn’t mention typos, LOL.
But seriously, one thing I do like about Our Guys is the relentless push for new coinages. The War on Noticing. Magic Dirt. Browngeld. Pozz. Redpill. DR3. Et cetera. There are a lot of new realities bubbling up in our Brave New World, and our guys are trying to capture them.
“My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel–it is, before all, to make you see.”
–Joseph Conrad
(From his novel with the gloriously politically incorrect title. Seriously, it’s actually a great book, and relevant to Our Thing: it’s about a sort of SJW of the time who’s out to wreck the camaraderie of a group of sailors.)
My latest favorite is ‘think-tank grifter’
“Pistachio Kotex” [from Heartiste, I think]
I liked this description of AOC’s eyes: “involuntary commitment eyes”.
That’s good. I like Sarah Hoyt’s: Occasional Cortex
I don’t understand why “cry bully” didn’t catch on more. It really catches the essence of the left. Perhaps writers are reluctant to use it, fearing a bunch of “internet tough guy” responses -ugh.
I think the word “cloaca” is even more appropriate, although the vulgarity distracts from the point somewhat.
“I don’t understand why “cry bully” didn’t catch on more”
You don’t?
Are you honestly unaware of its derivation from :
“The Jew cries out as he beats you”?
So good to know I’m not the only one who thinks JG is a bad writer.
I’m a horrific writer.
Don’t believe it; Stina writes well.
Around 2001 when The Corner got going, I used to enjoy Jonah in small doses along with Lileks. Had an exchange with him when I was blogging and my beloved white GSD died. He had a white dog, too, back then. I thought some (a lot) of his Star Trek references and such were jejune but I had twenty years on him; chalked it up to Gen X attitude and manner.
Your language becomes clear and strong not when you can no longer add, but when you can no longer take away. Isaac Bashevis Singer
That’s how I edit my writing now. (If I have time, and I always do in my fiction.)
yeah, one must be a ruthless self editor. it can be soul-destroying to pare a good turn of phrase, but sometimes necessary. Also, one can easily come to hate editors, especially the good ones.
Some writers that I feel should be appreciated just don’t do it for me. Chilton Williamson of Chronicles always starts out ok but then I do my heavy skimming.
Need I mention William F. Buckley?
Our host here is of course excepted. Kevin Michael Grace needs to be encouraged into writing to augment his podcasts. Very insightful.
I must confess, I came to hate Buckley’s writing. When I was a young man, there was not a lot of choice, so plodding through Buckley’s act was tolerable. His habit of using obscure words really bugged me. Once in a while is fine, but like salt in the stew, too much is always bad. As he got older his columns became incomprehensible.
Then there was his bastard child R. Emmet Tyrell of American Spectator. I am not ashamed to run to the dictionary but not for the ten dollar words he gratuitously put in his columns.
Tyrell is a classic example of how imitating the style of another writer, even a great one, can prevent a writer from finding his own voice. Tyrell idolized H.L. Mencken, and tried to write like him. This was a mistake, because of course he couldn’t do it, and also because, had Mencken lived in our era, he would have written in a different style. It’s very much like how all liberal presidential candidates tried for forty years to sound like JFK, and only succeeded in making fools of themselves. Tyrell always just sounded like a second-rate talent trying to imitate Mencken – which is pretty much what he was.
I’m glad I’m not the only one to have noticed that. Buckley was obsessed with hurling Latin invectives.
I thought Buckley was a pretentious, terminally boring writer.
I couldn’t stand his writing. Interminably opaque and dull.
Having a hard science job, I come at it from a perspective of precision of meaning. Sometimes the high falutin word better conveys the idea and adds. Most usually simple and clear is better. I like Hemingway and Steinbeck’s writing. That stated, one of my proudest achievements is getting the phrase “hunkered down” published in hard science cell biology publication. I do have occasion to write with graduates students. Some of their writing is so atrocious that it shocks (for native english speakers, you expect from the chinese) . With practice, and lashing, it does improve. I learned to write from reading and i’m not exaggerating when i state that i don’t know grammar ( ie a participle from my elbow). I’m always surprised when i get the praise “well written” on my stuff. It happens fairly frequently so i guess i’m not too bad.
How do you know if you are a good writer? You are one of those whose books have been banned from Amazon.
Whoa, hold on there! I have yet to be banned on Amazon, but it will come as soon as the creeps hear about my novels: I Like the White World, and Aryndell, a Sci-Fi novel with an amusing twist.
I LIke the White World is about Orange County CA and how glorious it can be, and also about truth. Dennis Prager is a character in it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1468199846/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2
This is the reason that I had to quit reading James Lileks. He’s a fine wordsmith, and has some amusing insights on occasion (despite his TrueCon opinions), but his level of self-obsession is genuinely astonishing. Does he really think that anybody, anybody at all, really cares about how he arranges the glassware in his cupboards? He honestly wrote about this once. I mean, for Lord’s sake…
I used to be astonished at the originality and how evocative so many of his similes, metaphors, and brief descriptions were. Almost Shakespearean in their freshness and aptness, and yet all wasted, it seemed to me, on complete ephemera and very light humor.
As I writer, I agonize for an apt and bright metaphor. They don’t come easy for me, any more than writing jokes or ad libing witty banter. Mark Steyn succeeds where Lileks fails. Steyn’s wit (in the humorous and genius sense) is astounding. I only wished he didn’t stutter so much when talking. It makes it hard to watch him on video as much as I enjoy his company.
Nor would Lileks ever countenance let alone endorse someone like Kathy Shaidle, another Canadian treasure.
Steyn seems to want to be some kind of TV star, which is too bad. He’s a fantastic writer, only adequate on TV.
Self absorption and laziness are certainly the main path to bad writing.
But dirtbags who have to obfuscate also makes for bad writing.
Lots of reasonably intelligent people often come across at dumb and deluded because they have to dance around the truth or have to embrace BS to fit in.
“She strutted into my office wearing a dress that clung to her like Saran Wrap to a sloppily butchered pork knuckle, bone and sinew jutting and lurching asymmetrically beneath its folds, the tightness exaggerating the granularity of the suet and causing what little palatable meat there was to sweat, its transparency the thief of imagination.”
You sir, are no Jonah Goldberg. I like that in a writer….
Whom do you quote?
Chris Wieloch
Woof!
Just to clarify. This is a example of BAD writing? Correct? Itghink the passage holds a certain amount of charm…
I’m going to turn that entire post into a syllogism
Bad writers write about themselves
Women always write about themselves
Women are bad writers.
How’s that for brevity! Though I guess technically I am writing about myself
Ha. I alluded to this in the post, but female writers probably need their own standard for bad writing. That said, whenever this comes up, I get female readers agreeing with me that they prefer male writers, so maybe there’s more to it. It seems that children’s literature is dominated by female writers, while poli-sci is dominated by males.
There’s probably some biology at work in the bad writing area, but I have not thought enough about it to say with confidence.
it’s true. Most women are far too verbose
The novel “Adam Bede” written in 1869 was written by a woman, “George Elliot”. It was pretty good. It became truly awful when she tried to do a sex scene halfway through the book. From the male protagonist’s point of view. It dragged on for several pages. Only a woman could have been so clueless about the male perspective on this topic.
I read that book not too long ago and thought it quite good exactly up to the point you mentioned. I finished it, but it’s energy seemed to roll right off the table after that.
The characters in “Adam Bede” speak in Derbyshire dialect.
Derb fanboy here. In the past I would troll on his behalf at NRO until they shut my ass down. Good times…
Women can’t write. They ruined Sci Fi.
There are some creditable female writers. However, usually only women enjoy reading them and they occur less frequently, with only a handful rising to the status of “great.” Good male writers have more universal appeal. Men are also well represented in children’s literature. Women make excellent poets, imo, but again few have achieved the same stature as male poets.
Has to with economics. Men are compelled to produce; in traditional society females can be supported by their husbands
All the good female poets are lesbians anyway!
I’m sure there are mixed opinions about Chateau Heartiste (Roissy). He’s certainly not for everyone, but he comes up with interesting insights, and I get a kick out of his made-up words and phrases.
Heartiste is something of a master stylist. Even on the rare occasions when I disagree with him, I still enjoy his flair and bravado. In an age of NPCs, the sheer force of his personality is refreshing.
He is a wordsmith, par excellence, and should be MUCH higher profile than he has been / is. Combination of biting acerbic wit, and using the right sequence of words about current events to deliver devastating rhetoric (or “rhetorical shivs / memetic killshots” in his own parlance).