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: 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. Put very simply, your characters must be alive before they seek justice. Bad writers often believe they have very little left to learn, and that it is the literary world’s fault that they have not yet been recognised, published, lauded and laurelled. It is a very destructive thing to believe that you are very close to being a good writer, and that all you need to do is keep going as you are rather than completely reinvent what you are doing. Bad writers think: “ I want to write this.”