I am going to take a different track for today's post. The fact is that some people simply can't write. Writing is a craft and an art. There is a school of thought that says everybody can write, but if that were true why doesn't everybody do it. The fact is that practice does make one better, but there has to be an underlying talent which raises some above others.

At the risk of sounding critical, all too frequently, I come across articles on here (and elsewhere) that frankly are unreadable. Admittedly, this is often connected with format and layout, but if at first glance gives you an "ik" feeling you are simply not going to read it. Common layout mistakes include

• overlong paragraphs. I too have sometimes been guilty of this. In my original version of The Nine Lives of Crypto_Rah, I dedicated a paragraph to each of my used up lives and while it worked for some, a few of the stories were too long to be squeezed into a single paragraph. I went back and reformatted it. Long paragraphs look intimidating and put the reader off.
• layouts that overuse small icons, often just before a title, almost as though they have been lifted out of Co-Pilot (which in some cases they probably have). They are a distraction.
• often related to the above point inconsistent font presentation, again something that might come out of a dependence on AI which has then been copied and pasted. The default is "paragraph" and other forms, titles, italics, bold text, blockquotes should be used sparingly and only to bring extra emphasis or to create section breaks. Such chaos plays havoc with the readers eyes.

Other than that the quality matters. David Eddings, one of my favourite authors, once wrote (The Rivan Codex - in which he explained his writing methodology as well as presenting his "pre-research" histories, national characteristics and belief systems of his fantasy world) that nobody should write unless they have an education. Now this might be going a bit too far, but his point is valid in that what we write needs to be readable and this goes beyond being educated and where talent rises to the surface.

During my studies I was required to read sections of a book about historical heritage and my tutor warned me (and the rest of the class) that the author's writing style was "dense and complicated". This seemed a bit off to me and sure enough sentences were overlong with too many sub-clauses and excessively sophisticated vocabulary. At the time I asked a friend of mine what he thought about this and he simply said, "Its an excuse - she doesn't know how to write." Education does not necessarily mean a person can write, so in this I depart from the David Eddings' view on the matter. 

Consider:

The young blissfully besotted couple surreptitiously absconded to Gretna Green, away from the prying interference of their kindred. Upon arrival they immediately sought out a cleric so they could exchange nuptials before any remonstration could be sounded from those who were in pursuit of them and threatening to thwart their plans.

Wow slow down! Some native speakers would struggle with that! Such writers are only showing off their education and not looking to communicate with their readership. Here is an alternative approach.

The two young lovers, who were very much in love, secretly and without drawing any attention to themselves ran away to Gretna Green* where they quickly found a priest who could marry them before anybody who was chasing them down to stop them could raise an objection and stop them from getting married.

* Gretna Green is a cultural reference. It is a small town just on the Scottish side of the England / Scotland border where marriage laws were historically different. In England you could get married at 16, but only with the express permission of the respective parents. In Scotland, at 16, no such permission was necessary. While I am not sure, I think the law is aligned now, but there is still a kind of romance behind "running away to Gretna Green" to get married. I know a couple who did that and they were in their 30s, although they didn't announce it to anybody beforehand.

That aside, we could always go the other way and be oversimplistic. On one hand this is a greater challenge for the non-native speaker using a second language who would tend to lean on simpler structures. For example, non-natives generally do not use the past continuous as it is what I call the "context" tense; second language communication tends to be more direct and there is no room for distracting context, even if the tense itself isn't that difficult to use (and just to make my point that is an overly-complicated sentence). Non-natives tend to use less sophisticated vocabulary as well as repeat forms and phrases they are comfortable with. This all depends on their level and confidence in the language. A few times I have come across students who have used "was" in every sentence. Then on the other hand natives often draw upon the vernacular which ofttimes is just wrong - "I didn't do nothing" meaning "I didn't do anything", but actually saying (by reversing the negations) "I did do something". Quality demands accuracy unless there is a reasonable explanation as to why - direct speech, where you are quoting the exact words a person uses, being an obvious example.

A writer should then check (and ideally peer review - if writing somethink like a novel) a piece for readability, grammatical accuracy and spelling. While I try my best to do this, I am sometimes guilty of this and especially if distracted mid-sentence. I also find it harder to spot mistakes on screen rather than on paper. These are not excuses, but explanations and I do always try to eliminate such errors. On P0x I do like the preview layout because its layout is more readable than the editor.

And this is where the quality of a good writer rises to the surface after all writing is about engagement and forming connections with the reader.

Incidentally, I have deliberately left an error in the text. See if you can find it. It was actually a typo that I felt immediately and corrected as I was going along, but then decided to put it back in to see if you can find it. If you find any others, they were missed by me :)

As always stay safe and well my friends.