I got an email recently from someone whose pen name is Angel Natari and they
asked how do I know if I'm a good writer or not? and my answer is well really in
my opinion your own appraisal of your skill level isn't actually that
important. I suppose if you do want to answer the question
am i a good writer or not then you need to define your terms: what is a good
writer? what does the phrase good writer mean to you? is it someone who can write
something that is clear and understandable? is it someone who can
give you terrible feels? is it someone who uses correct spelling and grammar
and punctuation? is it someone who can plot an intricate arc? is it someone who
creates believable characters? is it someone who is a published author? is it
all of these or none of them or something else entirely?
the thing is the way to know if you're good at writing or good at any of the
things I just mentioned is to write some stuff and then see what feedback people
give you on it. and it's always better if they give you that feedback off their
own bat rather than you pigeon holing your friends and going: so is it good
it's good right? bear in mind that you're going for quality over quantity when
we're talking about good reviews three people in a small fandom who
specifically say that your character work is on point is better than 50
people in a large fandom who tell you that your work is awesome but don't tell
you why. the harsh truth of it is most people me included are not particularly
good at writing and most people are also not particularly good at pinpointing
what is wrong with bad writing though I'll be honest the second one is
slightly easier than the first because poking holes in something that already
exists is much easier than staring at a blank page and going well what now? of
course whether or not you think you're a good writer it's always good to strive
to improve your writing so here are some tips on how to do that.
I've said before that if you want to be a better writer you need to practice
writing and you need to practice in a way that expands your skills rather than
just writing the same story over and over again so you need a base of
knowledge which is best picked up by reading a lot and reading a lot of
different things and asking yourself do I like this why or why not what is good
what is bad what are the features of this style that I would emulate if I
were trying to write in the style can I try writing in this style to see
if it works for me and then trying it
if you ask someone to critique your work then bad spelling punctuation and
grammar tend to be the things that they pick up on first
so always reread your work to check for typos and if possible read it out loud a
proofreader can be really helpful because if you want other people to
evaluate your story typos are like surface rust on a car it's possible to
look past surface rust and figure out if the car is structurally sound but a lot
of people are just going to pass on it and go no I'm not going to bother to buy
this car or read this fanfic and that deprives you of potentially insightful
feedback and insightful feedback is what you really need in order to improve
if you're not quite ready to release your story to the general public but
you'd still like feedback along those lines then what you need is a beta
reader beta readers may well pick up on spelling punctuation and grammar but
they will also say things like your characters are samey or your prose is so
sparse that we can't really picture what's going on or your prose is so
flowery that it obscures all meaning or this character is acting very strangely
and against the established canon if you're writing fanfic a good beta
reader is someone who knows the fandom who is willing to be brutally honest
with you and who is a good enough writer to figure out what is good and what is
bad about your story and then tell you good beta readers you may imagine are
worth their weight in gold I highly recommend having a beta reader or at the
very least having a group of friends who you can show your work to before you
release it to the general public to say so what do you think I could improve
here but that's only going to work if they're willing to be brutally honest
with you as I said at the beginning your opinion
of your writing is not the most important one obviously you need to have
a level of self confidence that is sufficient to allow you to put your work
out into the public sphere but beyond that it's really more important what
your readers think of your writing or potential publishers think if your
writing or potential agents think of your writing and unfortunately the only
way to know whether or not you're a good enough writer to be published is to try
and get something published but whether your goal is writing fanfic or being
published or just being better remember honest feedback from people who know
what they're talking about is the key to being better good luck