So, I went on a blind date this evening with a girl who is a fantasy writer / English lit major. It was interesting and fun, and we had a lot to talk about. One of the things that surprised me was a comment she made about writing.
Basically, she said “if it’s easy for you to write something, that’s bad. Good writing is always challenging.”
Now, this contradicts my own view, which is that when you’re writing is good, it comes naturally and so it flows a lot easier.
Which one is right?
OTOH, it’s easier to resort back to cliches and formulaic writing than it is to come up with new phrases and metaphors to describe things, so that would logically mean that the easier writing is, the more cliche it is. OTOH, writing is conveying thoughts, ideas, and imaginary experiences, and the stronger the connection between your imagination and that part of your brain which decides which words to put down on the paper, the easier and more natural it will come.
I could say more, but I have some homework I have to do before I go to bed. What is your take on this? Does your writing get better the easier it becomes, or worse?
I’m going to be rebellious and say neither one is right.
My first draft of “Saving Happily Ever After” was hard to write, because I didn’t have a clear idea about the characters. Since I didn’t care about Goldie, I didn’t want to write, and then feedback from my readers said they didn’t care about Goldie either, so the writing stunk.
Now, my second draft is going a lot easier, since I’ve figured out Goldie’s character. I like the story a lot more now, and that’s helping the writing. However, just because its coming easy doesn’t mean that its good writing. I certainly think its better than before, but is it good enough to win the contest I’m entering? I don’t really know.
So my thoughts? If you struggle too much with the writing, it becomes forced and not so good. However, when it comes easily, you will probably want to go back and check if it can’t be any better. So don’t judge the value of the work by how much you put into it, but on the work itself. Sometimes you’re inspired and things will just flow. Other times, you’ll need to work harder to get it to work.
And congrats on lots of people getting interested in the writing group! Hopefully lots of them want to stay around!
Thanks! You have some good points–especially how the really important thing isn’t whether or not it’s easy to write, but how is the quality of the writing once you’ve got it down on paper. In that way, I suppose it differs from person to person, and that either way, it’s not the really important indicator that you should be looking at. In any case, it’s probably not a significant indicator of quality.