How do you know if you are good at writing?

I think you're a good writer when you're confident enough in your work to say "this is good", but you are still accepting of criticism and can say "I can do better". Keep that balance.

I think this is as wrong a question as asking if you're any good. Not because it's unimportant, but because it doesn't get you anywhere.

Any honest writer with a sharp eye and a decent amount of time on their hands can read over their works and find flaws A, B, and C. But knowing your descriptions are terrible, or your humor isn't effective, or your narrative voice is weak—and saying so to yourself and others—is not going to solve the problems. What I want to know is, "Where does my writing fail, and how can I make it better?"

When I realized my descriptions sucked, I spent a year writing nothing but descriptions of people and rooms over and over (and over) again until I noticed improvement. Bad dialogue? Everytime I read a book, I pay extra attention to the content and structure of dialogue heavy scenes, and then try some exercises of my own. My jokes weren't funny? I started to read more humor and watch a lot comedic shows, movies, and stand-up, honing in on the type of humor it was, the structure of the jokes, and where the audience laughed until picked the style I wanted to try.

I know I'm not a good writer; I've got a long way to go. But I will do as much tedious, boring, and time consuming study and practice until I'm satisifed.

This. This is good for honing your craft.

I did the same for improving my jokes, too. Unfortunately I watch a lot of Family Guy and 30Rock ...which means I ended up with a lot of celebrity and NBC bashing.

If hypothetically your writing wasn't your own and to read it you would have to pay the cost of a paperback to read it, and you would choose to do so, then you are good at writing. That or you have really bad taste in literature.

edited 23rd Oct '11 3:36:55 PM by NoirGrimoir

Or you have a high focus on writing things you would like to read.

Everyone has high focus on things they would like to read. If they aren't writing something they would read then what the heck are they writing for?

edited 23rd Oct '11 4:13:25 PM by NoirGrimoir

I mean, I'd be willing to buy something "I" wrote in that hypothetical situation whether it looked particularly good (in the technical sense) or not, just because it contained a lot of elements that I like. Even if the writing quality was spectacularly bad, at least I could take some inspiration from it for my own works.

The point being that it's not a particularly good way to judge the quality of your own works, even if you can make the leap of objectivity it requires.

I like what I write, but I know that's largely because it contains elements I like. Similarly with the would-I-buy-it question—I would, but that's not the greatest indicator of its objective quality. I've read a lot of fanfic which I like but recognize the objective inferiority of in whatever traits.

Paradoxically, it should coincide roughly with when one stops asking oneself this question. Too much self-consciousness married to too little self-improvement is a guaranteed detriment to one's work.

@Four Stages thingy.

Heh, I continually bounce between Stage 2 and Stage 3. Sometimes I look at a section of my writing and am blown away by how good it is. (Case in point most of Chapter 15 in Endless Conflict) Sometimes I look at something and go "what the fuck was I thinking?" and re-write the section entirely. (Case in point my Chapter Zero.)

I know I can do some very good shit, at the same time I realize I still can make shit. Shit that can be revised into good shit but still shit.

edited 24th Oct '11 4:41:53 PM by MajorTom

Same, sort of. My work is very rarely technically poor, and I think that my descriptive abilities are pretty strong, but that doesn't mean that I'm entirely satisfied with where I am. I can do better. I want to do better. But here I am, now.

So, Stage 3. I guess.

I'm also seconding Betsy's post. Excellent advice.

edited 24th Oct '11 4:51:18 PM by JHM

There's no good writer, and there's no bad writer. Just a better one. A writer with a good head on their shoulders will constantly aim to be a better writer. Never a good one. Better and better.

I agree a good writer always aims to be better. I disagree there's no such thing as a bad writer. But I ask you, if you like it then what does it matter what anyone else thinks? Do your best to make the best story you can and if it isn't good enough for other people than who gives a shit? Just don't ignore constructive criticism, if someone gives you valid arguments. Doing so won't help you improve.

edited 27th Oct '11 9:28:56 PM by NoirGrimoir

I'd like to expand upon something nrjxll said on the last page. Even if you're not good, you may well be "good enough" for your target audience—for instance, a lot of readers won't care whether your fanfic is good or merely okay. Further, it's possible to be good in a particular way while being bad in general, as with many horror writers whose stories are bad when judged by standards other than how scary they are. I think it's best to start by being good enough for something, and work your way up. (This is how I wound up writing erotic fiction despite not having much interest in the genre—I'll never be great at writing sex, but I'm good enough to get a positive response from the large and undiscerning audience on the Internet, and I can use the stories to practice skills I'll need for non-erotic stories.)

edited 27th Oct '11 9:43:19 PM by feotakahari

That seems weird since I, and a lot of other people I'm aware of, consider badly written sex scenes almost worse than badly written anything else. If it really does work for you then, eh, okay, but I wonder if you've been lead to believe something that isn't helping you. Especially since people telling someone their mediocre erotica is good isn't necessarily going to help them in either improving or writing anything else.

I'm inclined to agree: if you can't write sex scenes, just don't write them. It's not particularly common that they bring anything to the plot that can't be done with a Sexy Discretion Shot anyway.

Feo's and Noir's comments kind of reminded me of another question I was going to ask, which was: How interested are you guys in being better writers?

Me?

I'd walk over my own mother's dead body.

Quite a bit, I guess. I mean, I'm not satisfied with what I've got. I don't want to remain average-to-bad for the rest of my life.

That doesn't mean I'm trying hard, though.

@Noir: Don't worry, I'm not subjecting my readers to lengthy bad sex scenes. Think of me as equivalent to a horror writer who knows he's not good at designing scary monsters—all he needs to do is make the audience care about the characters, and the monsters can be lightly described or hinted at in order to provoke the appropriate reaction. (Nothing Is Sexier isn't quite as true as Nothing Is Scarier, but it works well enough.) And like that horror writer, I think I can gain from practicing characterization even in a work that doesn't necessarily require it.

edited 28th Oct '11 4:33:12 PM by feotakahari

Eh, that really doesn't convince me. Forgive me if I seem to be picking on you. I just think what you're really after is an acceptable community that will read you're works and praise it. It seems like you've found one (though if you are getting praised for writing not-very-good smut, I have to wonder how helpful it will be in helping you improve), but I just don't think you need to write things you don't necessarily want to write and aren't good at, to find a community like that. I would suggest you branch out to other communities and genres. For instance, find a fandom you like and look for a community forum or fanfic archive for it, you'll find lots of people willing to read your work.

@Betsy. Hmm? I'm always keen on improving. I try to write and/or read a bit of something everyday, and I am an avid listener to the Writing Excuses podcast. (Which is quite good, and comes from professional authors, though sometimes they say things I disagree with or find to be almost deprecatingly obvious or unhelpful. Especially Brandon Sanderson, he honestly kind of annoys me, how hung up he is on Epic Fantasy, a genre which i seriously have trouble finding anything that is readable these days.)

I've been writing stories for about seven or eight years, and though I wrote a Mary Sue or two at the beginning, I consider myself actually pretty good at this point. My main issue is an inability to finish anything. Not to be too proud, but I actually feel I'm a better witter than a lot of the authors I pick up off the bookshelf, but when it comes down to it they've finished a book and I haven't, so I can't really rag on them much.

Except the Kitchy-ness that is what has become of Urban Fantasy and Epic Fantasy, these days. I spare them nothing for their boring, over-used, depth-less lack of characterization and emotion. Also, I'm just seriously getting tired of 'we have to defeat the evil dark lord or it's the end of the world!' plot. Can't they think of something else?

I have to strongly argue against this being a good idea. I'm not trying to come down on fanfiction here, but if you want to branch out your writing capabilities, then writing in a fandom you're already familiar with, with an audience that tends to be rather undemanding, does not seem to be a very well-thought way to go about it.

Incidentally, Noir Grimoir, there was a pretty lengthy discussion on Writer's Block Daily the other day about how so many people seem to want to write the same kind of uninspired fantasy. Sounds like something you might have been interested in.

I merely suggested it, since that is what he seems to be looking for. I'm just saying he can do that without forcing himself to write smut that he says he isn't good at and doesn't necessarily want to write.

Honestly the best way that I've found to help yourself improve at writing something is to find a beta reader who you admire and is way better than you at writing and have them critique your writing mercilessly. It can help you drastically improve very quickly.

And what post does it start on? I'll take a look.

edited 1st Nov '11 1:24:32 AM by NoirGrimoir

I'm pretty much agreeing with Noir Grimoir here. I admittedly don't know a lot about erotica and its online audience, but it strikes me that an audience that's just after wank fodder is going to be less demanding and likely to provide useful criticism than that of other types of fiction, not more.

How do you know if you are good at writing?

Write your stuff, then travel back in time to before you wrote your stuff and somehow delete any hint of your fiction planning. Then drop off your finished work there.

If past-you wants to read more, then you've succeeded. If past-you mehs it, then you have work to do. If past-you hates it, then you have become what you hate most and should have past-you punch future-you in the face.