On writing badly

It's refreshing to read something well written once in a while, even if it's this article about bad writing.

Good writing makes you keep reading. It's like good cooking. It draws you into the act of reading (eating), makes you not just enjoy reading but want to read and imparts an increased appreciation of the content and substance - but also the craft of making it. So satisfying, how did they do that?

Bad writing makes you wonder why they even bother to put random words on paper, as if they gave a damn how a thought comes across to the poor disrespected reader. An overly generous response to bad writing is: well, it's better than not writing at all.

Sorry, I'm not that generous. Bad writing does more damage than not writing. Like bad music, it inflicts pain on the senses, but it also conveys false, confused, or distorted information in the guise of facts and explanations, one step forward, two steps back.

Worst of all, bad writing numbs the senses to language the way bad architecture can make people hate their house. Bad writing in the jargon-laden, formulaic mode of most business and academic dreck, conveys the impression that this is all there is, information is dull by definition, and you can only get used to it. Just kill me now.

The trouble is, most of us have to do a lot of bad writing before we have the chops to do any good writing. It's a practice like any other. How are you going to play good basketball, chess, or piano unless you put in a lot of time playing bad basketball, chess, or piano? I wish it were otherwise.

Maybe I'm overlooking the difference between bad writing and novice writing. The neophyte or the uncoached player can easily be forgiven a multitude of sins. The craft takes practice, and the first few thousand attempts are going to fall short of excellence. It's a neophyte critic who is too harsh on the early attempts.

It's the careless, inattentive player who won't make the effort that is intolerable. If the first draft doesn't measure up, well too bad. You can't understand what I'm trying to say? That's your problem. With extremely rare exceptions, every first draft is badly written. It follows that everyone who refuses to rewrite (and rewrite and rewrite) writes badly.

The opposite problem can be just as infuriating. In contrast to the George W. Bushes of the world, who don't care enough to construct a coherent sentence, we have the terminally self-absorbed writer who finds every line flowing out of his or her mellifluous pen or word processor incredibly poignant and precious.

I plead guilty. Why else would anyone write, then write some more, and come back repeatedly to keep on writing without getting paid for it, unless they just love the sound of their own amazing writerly voice? Give me a freaking break and get over yourself. I'll try.