7 Reasons Your Writing Sucks
And how to fix it so people actually want to read it
So much whining on Medium these days. Everyone wants to be published and curated here the second they arrive. Why are my numbers so low? Why aren’t editors getting back to me? Why haven’t I heard back from this publication? Why aren’t I getting feedback on not being curated? I see these questions on an almost daily basis.
Ignorance is understandable; it takes time to work out the idiosyncrasies of writing online and this platform in particular.
What I dislike is entitlement. There’s a lot of that going around.
The one question I have literally never heard is “is my work good enough for people to want to read it, or to get curated or published?”
The answer, the vast majority of the time, is no. Yet everyone assumes it’s someone or something else’s fault.
People seem to think that just because you can publish anytime you want here that there are no gatekeepers and your work should just magically appear in everyone’s feed. That you don’t need to put every single ounce of effort into your work. That’s because they don’t get it.
The readers are the gatekeepers here, the very first. They’re like the drawbridge to the castle. If you aren’t impressing them, they won’t click or read your work. Then the algorithm will bury it. That’s your fault. Most of you are acting like they don’t even exist, trying to jump straight to editors in the highest tower, as though readers must have your brilliant work thrust upon them. Talk about trying to parkour before you can even crawl.
By not trying to satisfy readers first, you’re squandering your chances before they’ve even begun. With a platform as crowded as Medium has become, you’ve got a very small window to impress people. If you hand them the literary equivalent of dogshit on a plate, they’ll never click again when they see your name. If the average reader won’t click, an editor sure as hell won’t give you the time of day.
So it’s time to face some facts: your writing might suck. Hey, that’s not a slight on you — everyone sucks at things they’re new at or don’t give their best effort on. If you want readers, curation and publication, it’s on you to make sure it doesn’t suck, but right now you’re probably too close to it and self absorbed to see the situation objectively.
So I’m going to help you out with a proverbial flashlight in the dark, and illuminate some of the reasons your writing might suck, so you can fix it.
1. You don’t even have a basic understanding of the craft
Seriously, I can’t even begin to tell you how much writing I’ve read lately that is just bad. I don’t mean it’s not to my taste, I mean objectively bad. Poor punctuation and grammar. Long, convoluted sentences. Incorrect usage of words. Lack of flow. Lack of a freaking coherent idea or message.
I could go on. Lately I’m even seeing pieces that make me screw my face up and say “this doesn’t even make sense!”
Get this straight: writing isn’t just about throwing a bunch of words together any more than woodworking is about randomly hammering some nails into a plank of wood. It’s a craft that takes thought, time and effort.
Now, not to be a racist, prejudiced asshole, but Medium’s audience speaks English. That’s just how it is, right or wrong, for better or worse. If you’re not a native speaker, use Grammarly or the Hemingway editor once you’ve got a finished piece. That will at least ensure that you’re using the right words and your grammar works.
Don’t worry, that goes for a lot of you who do speak English as a first language as well. Before you hit that publish or submit button, go ahead and read your work out loud. If you’re constantly getting rejected for publications and curation, there’s a good chance that the first time you try to read your own work aloud you’ll realise what a train wreck it is. Once you’ve reworked it so it sounds ok, go and plug it into Grammarly or Hemingway and take note of what it tells you.
I’ll be the first to say that those tools won’t make you a great writer, but they’ll at least show you the basics. That’s as good a place to start as any.
Let’s get into word choices.
I was talking to a friend of mine who wrote a piece recently using the word “piqued.” As in, “the menu piqued my interest.” I told him that put him above at least half the people on Medium. He was incredulous and asked what I meant. I told him that every time I’ve seen it here, people write “peaked.”
Go ahead and call me a language snob, because I’m about to saddle up my high horse. If you want to call yourself a writer, words are the most fundamental part of your trade. Using the wrong words and acting like it’s no big deal is why people aren’t reading your work. You don’t respect what you do and you don’t respect them.
As Frank Underwood says to Zoey Barnes in of House of Cards after she says “use whatever word you like”:
“Words matter very much Ms Barnes, you should care more about them considering your profession.”
If you want to call yourself a writer, get your shit together when it comes to word choices and spelling. A soldier must be able to use a rifle, a painter must know how to use a brush, a surgeon must know how to use a scalpel. There is no excuse here.
2. You don’t respect the craft
My friends and colleagues know I’m a hard marker. They’ve brought their undergrad essays to me in the past and asked me to mark them and were both surprised and discouraged when it came back to them with red pen all over it. They often became indignant when they realised that it was all grammar and spelling that I marked.
“Why didn’t you comment on the ideas? My ideas were good!”
My response was always something along the lines of “your ideas might be good, but when you can’t even get the basics right, why should I give a shit? This is stuff you should have mastered in high school, and you’re not the least bit embarrassed to be handing this in to a professor?”
Plenty of work that I read here shows a clear lack of respect for the craft and the reader. Writing isn’t just about putting ideas on a page. It’s about creating a compelling argument or story, ensuring it flows in a coherent manner, making it easy to read, using the appropriate language for that specific audience. Those are just a few parts of it.
Have you even thought of any of these things, or are you normally too self absorbed in wanting to get your brilliant creation out there straight away for everyone to marvel at? If you actually took the time and respected the craft and audience, you’d probably realise that your creation isn’t so brilliant. That it’s a first draft that needs at least 5 more edits.
With that in mind, here’s an exercise for you. The next time you want to publish something, leave it to sit for 3 days. Then put it into Hemingway or Grammarly. Then go through it with a fine tooth comb, asking yourself whether it makes sense, whether it flows well, whether it reads well. Does your basic structure feel right. Does it offer anything for a reader?
Repeat this process no less than 5 times. Just like a blacksmith, you’re forging something. That takes time. Right now your writing is the equivalent of sticking a piece of metal in a forge, getting it hot and then banging on it a few times. You’re surprised when people don’t buy it even though you’re calling it a knife. Why won’t they buy my knife?
It’s not a knife, it’s a shitty piece of metal that you’ve banged a few times. Readers are no less discerning, so don’t treat them like idiots for not liking your work when it’s substandard.
3. There is nothing in your work for the reader
At it’s core, writing is the same as sales. Your title needs to be interesting. The first paragraph needs to be interesting. Every damn sentence needs to be interesting. Every single word you write you’re making a sale to the reader as to why they should keep reading.
People read for one of the following reasons:
- To be helped
- To be entertained
- To be motivated
- To get riled up and emotional
Is your work doing one of these four things, or are you just typing a bunch of stuff that is important to you? I see a lot of work now focusing on people’s personal experiences, a lot of “bleeding onto the page”, as though making yourself vulnerable is somehow interesting. On its own, it isn’t. What does the reader get out of it? If you’re sharing something that is outside the norm, is inherently interesting or is moving, then you’re fulfilling one of the criteria above. If all your writing consists of is you whining about this friend or that experience and nothing else, you’re better off just writing in a journal that you keep on your desk.
4. You have an entitled attitude
Seriously, the amount of whining from people because they aren’t getting curated or published after 2 weeks here is mind blowing. You saying “I showed this to my friends and they thought it was great, why aren’t I getting published?” is the equivalent of Milhouse on The Simpsons saying “but my mom says I’m cool.”
The writing world, just like the rest of the world, doesn’t owe you anything. You think people should be reading your work just because you think it’s interesting? Get it through your head, you work for their pleasure, not the other way around. You want to be curated or published? Earn it. Don’t make excuses for yourself either, like you don’t have the right connections, or they’re ignoring you (they probably are if your work sucks), or they’re tossing your work without reading it.
There are two reasons, and two reasons only that you aren’t getting published:
- Your work isn’t good enough.
- Your piece isn’t “on brand” for that publication.
By not accepting either of those conditions, you’re making excuses for yourself. Excuses are nasty little things, because they prevent you growing and becoming better. So stop the pity party and faux anger. I’ve seen a bunch of people who can’t seem to understand why they aren’t gaining traction, but their work never shows any improvement. Week after week, it’s the same garbage I’d expect to see from someone in the 9th grade. They aren’t taking the lesson that it isn’t good enough and instead resort to whining.
So here’s a new course of action for you:
Stop asking “why aren’t I getting published?”
Start asking, every single time you write, “how do I make this good enough to get published?”
Before we go on to the next one, there’s something really important to address here. Being published is not the panacea you think it is. There are plenty of publications right now that are putting dogshit out there. I saw a new writer just yesterday giving tips on how to get published because she achieved it so easily.
After looking at the titles of her other work, it became clear. She didn’t have any awesome secrets or great writing ability, she got published because it was Better Marketing and they publish some of the worst shit here. It’s not something to be proud of. She’d just done a good job in following the trends and writing “on brand.” There was nothing remotely insightful about her work.
Consider this: would you prefer to do it slower and put out work that you’re truly proud of, or would you prefer to put out stuff that will make you cringe in a few years because you did it just to get in a publication? Good work stands the test of time. You’re better off doing good work and hearing crickets at the start than compromising yourself for the sake of a few more reads. The first will eventually pay off, the second won’t.
Always remember: publication might get your work in front of more eyeballs, but that doesn’t mean they’ll click. If they click, it doesn’t mean they’ll read all of it. Your work needs to be good to succeed, don’t take short cuts.
5. You’re just following the crowd
It is so transparent when people are doing this. They follow whatever the latest trend is, whether it’s writing listicles, writing about their first $0.07 they made on Medium, writing about Trump. Writing about how they wrote for 2 weeks straight and here’s what they learned. It’s like they saw someone else do it and thought “I can’t think of anything else to write at the moment, that’ll keep the views going.”
That’s a mistake.
When you’re doing this, you’re not adding anything new to the conversation. You’re spinning your wheels, going through the motions, and hey, I’m sympathetic. This isn’t like the previous few points where you need some tough love, because Medium and other platforms are gaping maws that always demand more content if you’re to keep progressing.
That’s hard enough when you’ve been doing it for a long time. If you’re new, it’s easy to just get swept up in posting all the time because you think you have to. Trust me, you’re far better off posting when you have something real and interesting to say, something that excites you, than just constantly churning out half assed shit.
When you feel deeply about your writing, it shows. People want to read it. You can feel it in the words. On the other hand, you can tell a derivative piece of writing from a mile away, because the title alone will usually tell you. Sometimes, I’ll click just to see if I’m right. The unfortunate reality is that every time, it’s been even worse than what I expected.
Think of it this way. We can all see it when a studio puts a movie out and it’s just for the cash. You can see it in the trailer, you can see it in the casting, you can see it in the entire vibe around the movie. No one wants to watch it. It bombs at the box office.
On the other hand, when a studio does something with a huge amount of passion, like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, everyone sees that even if it isn’t to their taste.
Before you write about something, ask yourself if you really care about it, or are you just going through the motions? Were you excited when you sat down to write about it? If that’s a no, rethink it.
6. You aren’t an interesting person
I have a work colleague who has begun dabbling on the platform here and there. He’s not a “writer” and wouldn’t call himself one, yet I’ll choose to read his work every time over most of the people here. Why? Because every time he writes, he does it because he’s got something to say. There is always something interesting to take out of his work. He’s not doing it for the money, or to build a following, or to make him feel better about himself.
He’s out there in the world living an interesting life, trying different things and learning from the experience.
Whatever is in the news right now, or trending in the community has no bearing on what he writes. He writes purely based on having something to share, and when you write like that, you’re sharing something unique. You’re sharing something that I actually want to know about.
How many of you spend your time going to work or college, then going home and watching Netflix, maybe hanging out with your friends and then repeating day after day? Here’s a newsflash: that’s not interesting. You aren’t really growing as a person, you aren’t having new experiences and you aren’t learning anything.
Consider Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Steinbeck. Giants of literature. They all lived very interesting lives rich in experiences. No one is saying you need to join the army and fight in a world war, but if the depth of your experience is the same thing in the same place for years on end, you aren’t going to have much to say that’s insightful or moving.
7. Your work doesn’t even pass the sniff test
I recently saw a writer post his piece in a Facebook group thread about not being curated. The title was something along the lines of “5 Things You Need to do to be a Billionaire.”
The chances that you’re even a millionaire and writing on this platform are slim. You want to tell me that you know how to become a billionaire? Then why the fuck haven’t you done it yet? I can tell you why you didn’t get curated or have anyone read your work. It’s because people saw your title and immediately knew that you were full of shit.
Final actions
So now that I’ve laid everything out here, go back over your previous work that you were once so fond of with the lens of this advice. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll probably realise that it is nowhere near as good as you once thought it was. That’s a good thing, it means you’ve already grown.
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