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: Until they’ve told this particular story, they feel they can’t move on. But because the material is so close to them they can’t mess around with it enough to learn how writing works. And, ultimately, they lack the will to betray the material sufficiently to make it true. Bad writers often want to rewrite a book by another writer that was written in a different time period, under completely different social conditions. Because it’s a good book, they see no reason why they can’t simply do the same kind of thing again. They don’t understand that even historical novels or science fiction novels are a response to a particular moment. And pretending that the world isn’t as it is – or that the world should still be as it once was – is disastrous for any serious fiction. Any attempt to write fiction in order to make the world a better, fairer place is almost certain to fail
Conversely, bad writers often write in order to forward a cause or enlarge other people’s understanding of a contemporary social issue. Any attempt to write fiction in order to make the world a better, fairer place is almost certain to fail. Holding any value as more important than learning to be a good writer is dangerous.