Your definition of `good` writing

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05 September 2006

My Definition of Good ' Writing

My first attempt to complete this assignment began with a cavalier attitude . I didn 't think I needed to grapple with the question because initially , I believed the answer was simple : good ' writing is any writing that I 'm not forced to read or create . Smirking to myself for having so quickly come up with a response , I sat down to fill three pages with words that all added up to my initial idea . Thirty

minutes and a paragraph later , I saw that there was no way I was going to squeeze three pages out of the answer that had initially seemed so obvious , so I did what I always do when I have something I want to ignore : I opened up iTunes , and began surfing for songs as a means to put off working

Navigating through the various titles available for purchase and those already in my play list , I got caught up in singing along with Mary J Blige 's Family Affair ' and it struck me that the lyrics were actually written words - words I consider good ' writing . Finally , a potential connection to my task ! I went to LyricsFreaks .com to look at the words , and it dawned on me that the lyrics to the song reminded me of a page out of one of Shakespeare 's plays : they rhyme the sentences don 't always end where the lines do and they seem to contain words that some people don 't understand . Except the words to Family Affair reach me , and Shakespeare 's words really don 't . I had to admit that to someone who doesn 't like Hip-Hop music , the lyrics I am so fond of might seem as pointless and confusing as a page from a piece of Shakespeare 's writing often seems to me . I decided that my answer to what good writing was had to begin with writing that reached its audience

I have a friend who really likes Elvis Presley and the Beatles Personally , I can 't stand

their music any more than my friend can tolerate Mary J . Blige , but I have to admit that Elvis

and the Beatles had to have reached their respective audiences to become so famous and remain popular for so long . This friend of mine is also a pretty big Shakespeare fan and has tried to get me to appreciate the poetry and humor that she swears is in the plays he wrote . I just don 't get it , and that led me to something else : the ways a writer can reach an audience must be as varied as the potential audience itself . I guess that led me to a bit of a dead end

I decided to focus on the books I have read and enjoyed , and it dawned on me that there was one instance that the words to part of one of Shakespeare 's plays made sense , but it...