Become a Better Writer: Part I

Step 1: Read good writers

One of the sweetest writers I know, hard at work

Anatomy of a problem and ingredients for improvement

Writing is an integral part of the intellectual life. It is also an integral part of students’ lives at all stages of education (see illustration above). It doesn’t mean that either people who love ideas or students are naturally good at it. Worst news yet: Even professional writers often feel insecure about their writing. (I do.) No wonder some reluctant writers at all levels are so enthralled with AI right now. And yet, writing as an activity reflects God’s call to us to love Him with all our mind, in addition to heart, soul, and strength. This gives us a theological reason to care about our wordsmithing.

So how can any of us—students, academics, professional writers, and everyone else who writes or wishes he/she did—improve our writing? I first got to think about this more concretely as part of teaching BA and MA students in History. I continue to think about it now as a homeschool mom and as a (relatively new) writer myself. Alas, there are no easy recipes for mass production here.

I was an academic until I walked away from that life in 2023, but from 2014 to 2020, I was the director of an initiative designed to improve student writing at my university. The whole thing was more stick than carrot: The initiative was selected as the institution’s Quality Enhancement Plan, a required component of accreditation. Before I was asked to become the project’s director, a committee had come up with a plan (you can read a summary here).

The plan boiled down to the following: Make students write more all through the core, and improvement will follow. It really wasn’t a bad premise. But reading samples of student papers semester after semester, I wasn’t sure it quite delivered. Why not? I have four reasons to propose here that are relevant to the rest of us.

1. The best writers read a lot—and they read a lot of good writing. Unfortunately, the students at the state university where I was teaching were not reading much. They struggled to get through fifty pages of reading per week in introductory history classes. And many sections of the introductory English classes had moved away from assigning much reading—because the students weren’t doing the reading.

2. The best writers love beauty—and this connects to #1. A life filled with the joy of good books, family, friendships, nature, church, art of various sorts is going to be a life that lends itself to the pursuit of good writing as well. But so many of my former students had never been to a museum. Not once—as I discovered when I offered a paper option that required visiting a museum and writing about it. This is a reminder that such beauty is a privilege, and unfortunately, not everyone receives it.

3. Motivation is essential—in other words, to improve one’s writing, the desire for improvement is crucial. The desire alone won’t make it happen, of course. But a lack of desire is unlikely to lead to improvement. Students who completed the required writing assignments just to get through those assignments, and who were not interested in improving their writing—well, it showed. So, to improve one’s writing, one must think of it as more than just a utilitarian means to an end—the way to get through a paper, a class, college, graduate school, a career.

4. Improvement takes time, growth, and maturity. Writing is an art, and one cannot will art out of thin air, at the snap of one’s fingers. This is a process. Except, as a society, we’re more conditioned than ever towards immediate gratification. If we’re not good at something right off the bat, we decide that we’re just not good at it, and why bother. That’s sad—especially because in this age of AI the world needs good writers more than ever. Why? Because AI is not a good writer. And this brings us to a rather loaded question.

What is good writing?

This is an essential question to answer before proceeding. The answers to it are subjective—you may appreciate the writers I find unremarkable, and you may despise the writers I find inspiring. People who judge literary contests disagree wildly on the merits of written works, so what hope is there for the rest of us?

I contend that you always know good writing when you read it. It takes your breath away. How and why does it do that? It has to do with two things that we judge simultaneously, perhaps without even realizing it: We judge content (is this book or essay good? Is it true?) and the way the writer presents the content (does it sound beautiful?). A beautifully written book/essay filled with damaging falsehoods is not beautiful, no matter the elegance of its prose. On the other hand, one loses patience fast with a poorly written book/essay that tells something true. 

But the vast majority of books/essays dwell somewhere in-between. They do not necessarily set readers’ hearts or minds or souls aflutter, but they are quietly, simply useful. There is good there too. Organic chemistry textbooks have to exist.

Since starting to write regularly for the first time in my life during the 2020 Covid shutdown, I’ve found that my writing has improved dramatically. When I was an academic, I had ideas, but no time or emotional energy to work them out, so for decades, I just read. But now, all that reading is bearing fruit as it informs my writing.

I found

Karen Swallow Prior

’s recent series of interviews with writers who have pursued varied paths to publication fascinating in this regard. In particular,

Shemaiah Gonzalez

talked in her interview about her desire to improve her writing. You should read her thoughts, but TL/DR: she felt that the MFA she had pursued underdelivered and left her with a lot of debt.

Some masters of the craft: a very personal list

Okay, so maybe we all shouldn’t seek degrees in writing. So what can we do to improve? Back when I was teaching, and especially working with MA students in History, I would tell them: Find authors and books that are so good, you wish you had written them. Let these be your inspiration. What are these writers doing that has impressed you so? What can you learn from these masters of the craft?

This is advice I continue to stand by and think about a lot, even if I’m afraid I’m failing my own masters.

So, here are three historians I consider my models for beautiful English-language writing: Marci Shore (especially The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe), Tiya Miles (especially All That She Carried: The Story of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake) and Laurel Hatcher Ulrich (A Midwife’s Tale). 

But wait, you might say, all of them write outside of your area. And they aren’t writing for your audience. Yes! This is no snub on my field (Classics and the Early Church) or audience (increasingly, the church). Rather, this is a good reminder that we should all read more broadly.

On the fiction side of things, I find that Leif Enger, Wendell Berry, and Susanna Clarke meet over and over the basic criterion for good writing: It takes the reader’s breath away. More than that, their works stop the reader to mull, weep, mourn, pray. They are writers who clearly read a lot and love beauty dearly.

Last but not least, I’ve probably learned most about writing through my experiences writing and editing for Current (check us out, if you’re not reading us already!)—and, specifically, through working under the kind mentorship of Current’s editor Eric Miller. The author of an excellent intellectual biography of Christopher Lasch, Miller is the best writer I personally know. Reading his essays is a masterclass in writing that is not just mechanically good. Rather, I am reminded every time I read one of his essays that the best writing is alive and life-giving. You can check out his work at Current, Commonweal, and CT, among others—maybe start with his epic essay about running in/through Amish country!

So now, a challenge for you: Who are your role models? What books (or essays) do you wish you had written? What about them makes the writing so good?

Starting next week, we’ll dig into a few books on writing, beginning with veteran IVP editor Andrew Le Peau’s aggressively titled volume, Write Better.

P.S.

I feel like I need to conclude with an apology for any typographical or grammatical errors in this post. Normally, I just say to myself as I hit “publish”: Whatever, it’s just a blog post! But here I am, displaying all-out hubris, writing about improving writing. So surely there are extra errors hidden in here. I am really sorry. Errare humanum est applies to writing most of all.

P.P.S.

A post Labor Day reminder that there is still time to sign up for the Launch Team for my book, Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic—coming this fall with IVP Academic.