The journey started with some realizations. The first one was all writers must hate themselves. Why else would someone want to pursue a career where they’re constantly critiqued?
The second realization was that I didn’t like my writing, but who could blame me? A writer’s life is challenging. The craft requires years of practice, and even after mastery some will agree it could be better. Even if it is skillful work, there’s always a way to improve your writing.
As a writer, finding confidence in my writing was difficult until I decided to do something about it. So, I threw down my pen, picked up my keyboard, and emailed people I trusted to know the most about bad writing. Hundreds of high school English teachers must have read my email, and luckily, a few responded to explain what I could do to overcome my bad writing.
Edit More
Language is fundamentally about exploration. We’re like astronauts, exploring the frontiers of our inner world, but we don’t need to share everything. We should make our writing succinct but without just deleting and starting over. Instead, we need to rework our words. This exercise can help us find more straightforward ways of communicating.
This idea was a clear theme that emerged from the first replies. One teacher even suggested, “A novice cannot just write one single draft and call it their best work–writing takes time, revisions, deletions, etc.”
Others shared similarly terse advice. “Don’t overembellish your prose.”
Overembellishing can indeed dissolve a reader’s attention quickly, but embellishments also make a story come to life. They fill any empty room with color, lights, and sounds. So, I think it’s essential to overembellish but be prepared to delete anything that doesn’t advance the reader’s experience.
These teachers weren’t the only ones to suggest that editing was a major issue for novice writers, though. One anonymous teacher called it “a social media/blog culture” and explained that “oftentimes, novice writers think they can sit at their keyboards and stream-of-consciousness write, but that does not always turn out the best ideas (in fact, some of the best stream-of-consciousness writers, such as Fitzgerald) edited their stream-of-consciousness writing.”
Confidence is good, but overembellishing or under-editing can make a writer’s work difficult to read.
Exploration improves writing by encouraging edits and rewrites, helping filter out extraneous details in exchange for compelling ones. This topic touched a nerve for high school English teachers, but it wasn’t the only one. Another strong point of contention was novice writers and their readers.
Consider The Audience
“The most common mistake writers make is not having their work examined by a third party. Critiques are how an artist grows because you can’t know everything. No one can know everything, and ultimately, you’re writing for others.” This advice from one teacher came in a few days after the others.
The act of writing is more about the reader than the writer. This advice seemed to be at the core of many other responses, including one teacher who mentioned, “Young or novice writers often focus on what they want to say rather than on what the audience needs to hear.”
Writing starts when writers are ready to listen to a reader’s honest feedback.
The reality is that critiques are not fun. They’re part of the motivation for this article, so clearly they can spur people to insanity. That doesn’t make them less valuable. Find a core group of people you trust and ask them for help. Whether it’s friends, strangers, family, or an online group, track down people to read your work.
Then, once you have an outside perspective on your work, you can further understand your audience.
Ask yourself endless questions about the reader. You might have a picture immediately pop into your head, but challenge yourself to write it down. Describe them down to the annoying details. Then, you’ll have a fully realized understanding.
Be Specific
These teachers are on the frontlines in an all-out war on bad grammar. The problem is bad grammar doesn’t seem to be their only enemy. Generalities and cliches are continuing to grow more unpopular with teachers.
That advice probably isn’t a surprise to most. After all, as one teacher put it, “generalities and cliches, make your writing vague and unoriginal.” Unfortunately, what that leads to is a big nothing sandwich and a reader with glazed-over eyes.
On the other hand, the teacher pointed out that “using specifics” is essential “to make the experience unique and clear enough to play like a movie in the reader’s head.”
To earn a connection with readers, you need to use specifics to draft a sort of movie sequence. Although it doesn’t have to play out like a movie, the content should flow well with logical ideas.
The anonymous teacher suggested these details could make your writing more compelling, and even included an example. “‘My friend was there for me…’ – what does “there” entail? “My friend brought over fudge graham crackers and Rocky Road ice cream when I didn’t feel like company, but she knew I needed it…” is much more relatable and memorable.””
This is where being a writer became more challenging for me. It’s all too easy to settle on lower-quality work, but it’s not worth it. Rewriting and exploration can truly elevate someone’s writing. Find those memorable details without going overboard, and think about your story like a movie while asking yourself how to ensure the audience doesn’t stop reading for even a second.
Act Selfless
I understand selflessness doesn’t immediately seem like a required trait for writers. However, as I received some of the final replies to my survey, this advice became clear.
Thomas Kaplan explained with an example using the sentence. “‘Me and my friends went to the store”. It’s a simple sentence that’s grammatically incorrect.
“People regularly talk this way,” he continued, “so I have to have students repeat the sentence without ‘and my friends’ to hear if it sounds okay to their ears. Then I tell them not only is it grammatically incorrect, but it’s rude—manners say to put your friends before yourself.”
In a real way, writing is about kindness. It’s what makes up the core foundation of grammar; it’s how you connect with your audience. When you’re selfless with your approach to writing, you can start tapping into the key concepts that matter to your audience. It also allows you to approach your writing as an observer.
Finally
I know I’m not the first person to feel like their writing was crap, and what I discovered from all the survey responses was that although I make these mistakes, my writing isn’t crap.
Although my survey was about the mistakes that novice writers make, that’s not the story I took away. It wouldn’t be right to write about mistakes. Our errors don’t define us, and writing should be celebrated. Strangely, all the replies I got from the survey taught me a different lesson than the ones they shared. After I read their answers and reflected on my experiences in English class, something hit me.
Their advice was tough, but English teachers have to be optimistic. I know what my writing was like in high school, but somehow my teacher always found a compliment. If it’s what you love, there is no reason not to write.
So, while the mistakes these teachers shared include helpful tips, the advice isn’t perfect. It won’t always work, and you might find exceptions. Ultimately, the only surefire way to improve is to practice. So I hope if you’re reading this, you’re encouraged to write more and explore a whole new world.