What is ‘good writing’?

So what is ‘good writing’? How do you define what is ‘good writing’ and what isn’t?

For many people, it’s probably subjective. It’s based on what you like. Some people like long, flowing sentences that express a great deal of information, whether descriptive or hard facts, and give a complete, well-defined thought. Others prefer short sentences. Is one better than the other?

I think that whatever your preferences are – for long or short sentences, for grammatically correct English or loose, as-we-talk writing, for simple or complex language – the definition of ‘good writing’ boils down to just a few simple questions:

First, what are you writing?

If you are writing a complex report for your boss, then you would most likely want to use longer sentences, full of descriptions of whatever subject the report is about. Properly formatted sentences, with a subject, verb and an object would be as important as the overall organization of the report.

If, on the other hand, you are writing a quick blog entry then you may not be as interested in making sure you don’t end a sentence with a preposition. Nor would you care if you use sentence fragments. Your goal in writing a blog post is different than writing a formal report that could affect your job. Good writing is defined by what you are writing.

Before you put pen to paper, or these days put fingers to keyboard, take a moment and think about what you are writing. What will it look like in final form? How will it be distributed to your audience?

That leads me directly to the second question – who is your intended audience?

In other words, who is going to read this when you’re done? What defines ‘good writing’ changes dramatically based on the intended audience. Again, if you’re writing for your boss, you will want to use more complex language and sentence structure. Website copy might be less formal, depending on the site, and use short, choppy sentences to convey its message.

Try to imagine a individual person reading your writing. Put a specific face on that person. Define who they are: age, gender, race, hair color (or lack thereof), financial status, anything that helps you to know who you are writing to. I’ll discuss audience more in a future post but for now, create a mental picture of one ideal person reading your writing.

Third – why are you writing?

We write for all kinds of reasons, from telling someone how we feel about them (good love letters don’t rely on perfect English, they’re poetry, after all) to telling a story for entertainment. We write to persuade, to educate, to just mouth off about whatever is on our minds (that’s what blogs often do).

But why are YOU writing THIS piece?

Think about your goal: all things being equal, what would the ultimate result of your audience (the one you defined above) reading these words? Do you want them to take a specific action? Do you want them to feel something, like love or anger?

Depending on what you are writing, you may or may not want to take the time to write out answers to these questions.

Professional writers often spend a great deal of time, for example, getting to know their intended audience. They want to know everything about that person so they can write directly to him or her, as if speaking to a close friend. To that end, they spend hours writing out detailed analyses of their audience, defining why they are writing and the intended goals for that piece.

So, once you have answered these questions, you should have an idea of what ‘good writing’ is, at least for the piece you’re writing right now.

But is there a single definition of ‘good writing’? Probably not, but if I were to put it into a single sentence, I’d say …

‘Good writing’ is writing that speaks to the intended audience in such a way that they understand the message and take appropriate action.

So how do YOU define ‘good writing’? I’d love to know what your criteria is for your definition of ‘good writing’. Add a comment to this post and define what ‘good writing’ is for you.