Title: What makes bad writing bad? | Books | The Guardian
Headings: What makes bad writing bad?
Books
What makes bad writing bad?
The biggest mistake most writers make is thinking they have nothing left to learn
Toby Litt
When Updike began writing Rabbit, Run it was either going to be a great technical feat or a humiliating misjudgment
Any attempt to write fiction in order to make the world a better, fairer place is almost certain to fail

Content: What makes bad writing bad? | Books | The Guardian
Books
What makes bad writing bad? The biggest mistake most writers make is thinking they have nothing left to learn
Bad writers often have many reasons for writing the way they do … Photograph: Henrik Sorensen/Getty Images
Bad writers often have many reasons for writing the way they do … Photograph: Henrik Sorensen/Getty Images
Toby Litt
Fri 20 May 2016 06.45 EDT
Last modified on Wed 29 Nov 2017 05.39 EST
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B ad writing is mainly boring writing. It can be boring because it is too confused or too logical, or boring because it is hysterical or lethargic, or boring because nothing really happens. If I give you a 400 page manuscript of an unpublished novel – something that I consider to be badly written – you may read it to the end, but you will suffer as you do. It’s possible that you’ve never had to read 80,000 words of bad writing. The friend of a friend’s novel. I have.