The Essence of Good Writing

Hi Friends,

This week I wanted to share something a little different - a bit about how good writing captures the imagination and can change the heart. It's a bit about what I see as the goal of my own writing, and something I hope will be useful to you as well, whether you write fiction, short stories, or even just notes about your family to friends and relatives.

So, the question is, What is good writing anyway? What is writing that captures the imagination and the heart, that draws pictures in people's minds and touches their emotions, changes them.

Is it fine metaphors, a clever turn of phrase? Or perhaps it’s just the right verb used in just the right place? While I love metaphors and the right choice of words, these aren’t the things that make writing transcend the ordinary to become truly good writing.

Good writing, I have come to realize, is writing that gets out of the way and allows the reader to live the story, to experience the story from inside the characters’ point of view. Good writing transports the reader in someone else’s mind, heart, life. It’s all about seeing what someone else sees, feeling what they feel, living the story with the point of view character.

That’s why good writing lets the reader interact with the story in a way that’s natural, that’s true to real life. We don’t want to switch point of view from one character to another and back again in the middle of a scene because as people we don’t “head-hop” in our normal lives. We try to eliminate speaker attributes such as “he said/she said” because in normal life there are no “said’s” – instead we watch people as they speak. They fold their arms, or scratch their nose, or look away. That’s how we normally engage in conversation – reading body language as much as we hear words. And that, of course, is why good writing shows and doesn’t tell – because that’s how we operate in our everyday lives. Someone comes in the room and slams the door – we know they’re angry. They don’t announce they’re angry, they show us. It’s no different in good writing. It’s all about coaxing the reader to see, to experience, to live in the story.

So, next time you want to write something good, even if it's just your Christmas newsletter, remember that it isn’t about words and rules, it’s about helping the reader to live the story, to interact with your characters in the same way that they interact in their normal, everyday lives. It’s about the life and breath and heart of the story. It’s about the writing being so natural that it fades away, leaving only the story’s vision to lead the reader into a new world.

That's my hope for the things I write - for Veil of Fire, which came out in May, for Beyond the Night which will be released next May, for the Power for Living articles I wrote last week, for the book I'm working on now. And it's my hope for the things you write as well. Words have power, they say. But story has even more.

May God be in your writing, whatever it may be!