How Do You Genuinely Improve The Quality of Your Writing? [closed]

Question

I see a number of things out there that address the issue of writing quality, including some posts here. But I wanted to ask the question of writing quality with a specific eye to my experiences. As a college graduate, I've had to write papers for several classes related to a number of disciplines. This has presented a number of opportunities for my writing to be critiqued, and has presented some points for improvement.

The problem comes in this: Those critiques have been wildly inconsistent. I've had papers that have been flunked over "writing issues", and other papers that have gotten high grades. I even have one instance where a professor suggested that papers be reviewed by the school's writing lab. The people there praised the paper and even used the phrase "you write wonderfully", but the professor docked 40% of the possible grade for this paper for "writing issues". Thankfully, this professor was fair about his suggestion blowing up in his face (I surmised that my paper wasn't unique in this way) and offered a second chance at the grade with his "writing issues" pointed out. Needless to say, this is frustrating when determining what I actually do need to improve. My guess is that a true critique of my writing lies somewhere in the middle.

So with that in mind, how do you determine what you genuinely need to improve upon when it comes to your writing skills? Proofreading and review by others is an obvious answer. But how do you tell when a critique is "too easy", or more important to the question if something is just a personal pet peeve from a grammar, word-choice (or otherwise) standpoint?

Answer 1

You can't, really, other than to get familiar with critiques in general and compare them to one another so you get a feel for what issues in your writing are being fixed. If five different readers love your phrasing and one doesn't, chances are your phrases is fine. If three people complain about your use of the passive voice and three don't, think about it but don't feel obligated to change every usage.

There's no secret objective Quality standard which all writing must meet which the rest of the world is spitefully keeping from you. You saw for yourself that some people loved your work, and someone else looked at the exact same piece and hated it. It doesn't make those people wrong and that one right (other than in the context of getting the grade). It means they had different standards.

If your goal is to meet a specific standard (for example, whatever the professor thinks is Good Writing), then you have to find out what those standards are. But if you're not being graded, then it's just a matter of finding an audience.

This is why people submit novels to many agents and then to many publishers, because some people like a writer's style/plot/writing and some don't. J.K. Rowling sent the first Harry Potter novel to 17 different places before Bloomsbury bought it, and now she's a gazillionaire. And yet my husband thinks her writing is childish and thin. E.L. James has been lauded as a massive success because women are buying her naughty books, but in five minutes I can find you ten "better" pieces of writing on the Internet (smoother prose, more interesting plots, more believable characters, naughtier sex) and they are all free.

De gustibus non disputandum. There's no accounting for taste.

Answer 2

Ultimately, you have to let your experience guide you when it comes to accepting or rejecting criticism of your writing. Which means you have to gain experience...which is exactly what it sounds like you are doing.

Criticism is wildly inconsistent because writing is wildly inconsistent. Browse through almost any collection of different authors--whether a scientific journal or a poetry anthology--and you'll likely find this to be true. It takes a strong editorial hand and a willingness to force one's aesthetic vision on another to get anything close to consistency (though, of course, formatting and the like may be consistent, particularly with journals that have or use a particular style guide) in a collection. And in some areas that very consistency might be suspect!

Teachers, even English teachers, aren't necessarily all going to agree on particular merits. Some will make more subjective judgments based on style than others will. You have to find readers you trust, whoever they are, and develop your own critical faculties as you go. Reading one's own work with enough objectivity to recognize where critics are right and enough sensitivity to dismiss them when they are wrong is a long journey.

It would be particularly helpful to see specific examples of criticism you are unsure about. Doing so might at least reveal where there is some level of agreement from a generally smart group of people and where there is not. Then it's up to you!

Answer 3

Take ownership of your work. The more you hand it around to editors, proofreaders, and critics, the more you try to process conflicting remarks, the more it loses its connection to you, especially in the early stages. Share your early draft with someone you trust to be honest, but don't share it with another writer; the writer will try to re-write it first and then offer some cursory feedback. It's in their nature. Read everyday. Write everyday. This is the road to general improvement.

EDIT: This may not sit well with many people, but I'm saying it because someone should. I disagree completely with the idea that more eyes on your piece is a good thing. From a practical standpoint, if you want to get some good writing done, you have to write. You should have a person or two (not writers) whom you trust with revising, but you need to hone your craft by reading. Workshopping a short story over and over, passing an article around to multiple editors, soliciting comments from whomever; these tasks grind you down. If you write professionally and you have deadlines, you won't have time for this. If you are writing a novel, excess criticism will cloud your purpose. And your purpose, your vision, is what matters once you leave the confines of the classroom, not whether you spell color with a "u".