Like all art, writing is a journey. We are not hatched accomplished writers. We become more accomplished with time, dedication, and writing. If any writer is bold enough to risk making a fool of themselves by sharing their work, more power to them. And if they’re not as accomplished as they will be someday, so what? No book is sold without offering a sample of the writing for inspection. You can look the horse in the mouth, and so no one can complain of the deal, should the writing be not up to their standard.
And on a side note. Just to be clear, “Huck and I” is a hill I’m willing to die on. ‘Huck and me” is a tiny half-step away from “Me an’Huck” and I ain’t writing dialect. To paraphrase Duke Ellington, if it sounds good, it is good, and to my ear, “Huck and I” sounds right, so it is right, despite what my wife and Berthold say:)
I agree with you about “Huck and I.” It’s when you come to “Huck is bigger than I” vs. “Huck is bigger than me,” that it gets murky for me. The first one sounds pretentious unless you add “am” to the end. I suppose one could use either, depending on who is speaking.
I agree. There is certainly a place and time for “me”. I always go with what sounds right to me rather than what may be grammatically correct. My stories being first person narratives, are written to represent the thoughts and speech of a person recounting a personal experience in their own words. Maybe with third person narrations, written as a remote, voice on high, readers might expect the narrative framework – separate as it is from the thoughts and speech of the characters – to be more formal and thus, more grammatically correct. But in the end, writing fiction is creative writing. I think one should use the language creatively, knowing full well you’re not going to please everyone.
At a certain point in my career as a writing instructor, I found making value judgments of writing as “good” or “bad” meaningless, and I wouldn’t use them. I find it much more useful to evaluate what a piece of writing DOES, not what it IS. Is the writing effective? Is there a big gap between what the writer intended it to do and the experience of the reader? The other problem with identifying writing as “bad” (at least in a teaching and learning context) is that it shuts down the conversation. (“Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms.”) In the case of typos and grammar errors, do they distract the reader, taking attention away from the characters and the story? Again, what does the writing DO?
I think you’ve described this very well. Your experience in teaching writing seems particularly apt. What do you want to do as a writer is a far better way to describe success than good versus bad.
And I agree with your comment about typos and bad grammar. When it begins to distract the reader is when it is a problem. A typo here or there shouldn’t be a problem. Where I begin to notice, and get distracted, is when there are so many that I begin to tally them in my head and wonder just how many there are in the story.
Excellent points, Liz. “Good” and especially “bad” are blunt adjectives. “Bad” is pre-loaded with harmful negativity and doesn’t offer anything helpful to someone who is learning to write. On the other hand, those words can be useful shortcuts if everyone hearing or reading them knows the sense in which they are applied right then.
Writers Supporting Writers 
There’s no accounting for taste.
The quality of art lies upon a spectrum.
Bad writing is writing that hasn’t had enough eyes-on.
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Like all art, writing is a journey. We are not hatched accomplished writers. We become more accomplished with time, dedication, and writing. If any writer is bold enough to risk making a fool of themselves by sharing their work, more power to them. And if they’re not as accomplished as they will be someday, so what? No book is sold without offering a sample of the writing for inspection. You can look the horse in the mouth, and so no one can complain of the deal, should the writing be not up to their standard.
And on a side note. Just to be clear, “Huck and I” is a hill I’m willing to die on. ‘Huck and me” is a tiny half-step away from “Me an’Huck” and I ain’t writing dialect. To paraphrase Duke Ellington, if it sounds good, it is good, and to my ear, “Huck and I” sounds right, so it is right, despite what my wife and Berthold say:)
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You have your principles, and you stick to ’em! I admire that. 🙂
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I agree with you about “Huck and I.” It’s when you come to “Huck is bigger than I” vs. “Huck is bigger than me,” that it gets murky for me. The first one sounds pretentious unless you add “am” to the end. I suppose one could use either, depending on who is speaking.
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I agree. There is certainly a place and time for “me”. I always go with what sounds right to me rather than what may be grammatically correct. My stories being first person narratives, are written to represent the thoughts and speech of a person recounting a personal experience in their own words. Maybe with third person narrations, written as a remote, voice on high, readers might expect the narrative framework – separate as it is from the thoughts and speech of the characters – to be more formal and thus, more grammatically correct. But in the end, writing fiction is creative writing. I think one should use the language creatively, knowing full well you’re not going to please everyone.
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Your last sentence pretty much sums it up.
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At a certain point in my career as a writing instructor, I found making value judgments of writing as “good” or “bad” meaningless, and I wouldn’t use them. I find it much more useful to evaluate what a piece of writing DOES, not what it IS. Is the writing effective? Is there a big gap between what the writer intended it to do and the experience of the reader? The other problem with identifying writing as “bad” (at least in a teaching and learning context) is that it shuts down the conversation. (“Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms.”) In the case of typos and grammar errors, do they distract the reader, taking attention away from the characters and the story? Again, what does the writing DO?
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I think you’ve described this very well. Your experience in teaching writing seems particularly apt. What do you want to do as a writer is a far better way to describe success than good versus bad.
And I agree with your comment about typos and bad grammar. When it begins to distract the reader is when it is a problem. A typo here or there shouldn’t be a problem. Where I begin to notice, and get distracted, is when there are so many that I begin to tally them in my head and wonder just how many there are in the story.
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Thanks!
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It’s always a bad sign when I’m looking for the next typo or misused word when I’m reading something.
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Excellent points, Liz. “Good” and especially “bad” are blunt adjectives. “Bad” is pre-loaded with harmful negativity and doesn’t offer anything helpful to someone who is learning to write. On the other hand, those words can be useful shortcuts if everyone hearing or reading them knows the sense in which they are applied right then.
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Thanks, Audrey! I guess when I see “bad,” I assume the text will trip me up; “good” means it won’t.
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That’s certainly true, Liz. More precise words are needed to evaluate other aspects of a piece of writing, like plot, characters, and prose style.
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Yes, the writing teacher’s mantra: Be specific!
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