How do you become a good writer?
Posted by Paul on February 16, 2008
And how do you define what a good writer is?
I just read a great article by Tom Chiarella in this month’s Esquire. The prose was sharp, tight, and witty. I would love to be able to write a great sentence like that — where I can fully explain the scene and my emotions and the cause and effect, and keep it under seven words while still being funny.
I don’t think anyone can teach you how be a great writer, and that it comes naturally through practice. And I guess there are a lot of unseen re-writes, a lot of crap along the way to muddle through before you get that great sentence. It’s like the gold idol scene in the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark: Indiana Jones has to navigate through booby traps and treasonous, backstabbing guides and killer spiders before he gets that little golden sentence… and at the end of the act he ends up losing it anyway to the rival French archaeologist. The rival is his editor.
