David Foster Wallace on Why Writers Suck at Writing

Why do writers and so many people suck at writing? Today, we will hear from David Foster Wallace about the things that ruin writing. I will then break down how everyone from writers, your boss, your mom, and even you suck at writing!

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[toddjacksonpoetry]

Attention to breath is everything. And most academic writing doesn't breathe. Since it doesn't breathe, it never seems to have any human body behind it .

[ocdtdc]

Hey, now, no need to call me out like this

[zoobee]

Rupi Kaur is an execrable 'poet' but a genius hustler. She monetised Instagram with poetic inanity for millions of young women who crave meaning. The poetry is not in her words, the poetry is in the fears of the girls and women who find meaning in her inanity. I have sympathy for them

[Jestfoster]

Simply put: I think the reason most people suck at writing is because they don’t receive enough honest, constructive criticism about their potential as a writer. You also have people that purposefully avoid it.

[CINEMARTYR]

I can’t shake the feeling that DFW was kinda talking about himself (or how he once was at some point) just a bit with that quote 😅

[bjwnashe]

Wallace talking about his own writing.

[mizukarate]

Im a bad writer. But with practice I suck less. It helps me to write angry complaint letters.

[RobinNightLight]

"If you catch an adjective, kill it." -Mark Twain

[sartavin]

In order to be a writer, I think it is important that you are first a reader. "Writing" has the least amount of prerequisites financially to get started, so it probably attracts the type of people who want clout and money rather than to actually contribute to the art form. Which isn't bad in itself... except when these non-readers and grammatically illiterate actually try to hawk their wares, further over-saturating the market as a whole, or worse actually get into roles of power through clout-chasing, as we are seeing in large parts of Hollywood today.

[LuisBorba]

If a book is published on KDP and it doesn't sell, it doesn't mean it's a crappy book. On the flipside, I have read some crappy books by traditionally published writers.

[gristlevonraben]

you might like this poem, i hope so.

Denim Blue Evening
(soft, slow poem)

Cool, moist air
curled around my hair,
and cooled the soreness of my mind,
and the softest, denim blue color,
unfolded from the milky-blue sky
and colored everything
with its blue softness.

The distant clouds,
slanted with rain,
a darker denim blue,
draped across a setting sun,
and rays that were usually golden,
were blue and grey.

The faded blue
seeped like hazy incense
into the tree-lines
and hills.

My arms became a shade of blue,
one, resting on the door's open window,
and one on the steering wheel;
And I could think of nothing,
but the softness
and how it felt like love,
how calm and soft and certain it was,
as if a promise kept,
made both lives good,
not just for the one.

Oak trees added their dusty scent
to the tangy pines,
and their breaths blended smoothly with my own.

Tires hummed quietly,
the engine purred mutedly,
And in the grassy fields
along side the grey-blue highway,
I could hear the meadow larks
calling to each other,
"Where are you, Love?"
"I am here, My Love."

[DEWwords]

He never wrote a single paragraph that wasn't overcooked and twice as long as it needed to be--- narcissistic bloviator.

[jordanramsey]

all art has fundamentals nobody wants to learn and artists ignore these until their egos finally become tamed. at least in my experience.

[DKFynn]

For years, I've noticed the misuse of punctuation marks creeping their way into the headlines of major websites. This can lead to ambiguous headlines, or headlines with double meanings.

I've seen repeatedly that many people use an apostrophe for the plural form of a word when the apostrophe isn't appropriate. (For example, guru's rather than gurus when talking about 2 or more people.)

Of course, there's the classic "their, there, and they're."

For me, these (and other misuses of words and punctuation that are almost too numerous to mention here) are a cause for concern. Lack of proper word usage leads to improper communication, can be a sign of unclear thinking. En masse, this could actually be disastrous, because we'll have masses of people who either can't think clearly and/or can't communicate clearly.

[RayDesmond]

I know my writing sucks. I do it as hobby.

[paultapping]

"if you can't organise your thoughts into a coherant structure..."

Having read Infinite Jest some time ago that opening quote is kind of funny. Don't get me wrong, I really, really like it. The summer I spent reading it was wonderful. But it's funny to think of someone who wrote that meandering beast of a novel lecturing people about coherance and concision 😂

[Amanita._.Verosa._.]

I sometimes get sad when I look around me and all I see is lit that wasn't given the time to grow. It's all the same things over and over and over again.

I've spent 5 years on one novel so far, fleshing it out, adding in symbolism —things I admire about Dostoyevsky, for example. These peopIe really considered their crafts. They layered their works in meaning.

And I can't help but wonder how I'm supposed to survive in a worId that doesn't seem to care about that anymore.

[ernestmendez]

As someone who studies all forms of literature, I found Kaur's book to be an artless swindle. As it's wholly illiterate and terribly self-centered. Because she shamelessly degrades the dignity of her life and trauma with the cheap shock of mercenary sensationalism. What an embarrassment to the English language while selfishly poisoning the creative sensibilities of her fellow women.

Now here's some incredibly helpful advice to you writers out there (exercise your judgement, here, not your memory).

-Art is not a science (the most important thing to realize when creating art in any form--as true aritsts are not afraid to gaze into infinitude).

-Echoing George Sand: Art for the sake of art is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, for the sake of the good and beautiful; that is the faith that I'm searching for.

-If you are attempting to be a writer and you do not study literature with your heart; your narrative (all writing is narrative) will strike us much like the speech of a person who speaks much more than they think.

-Paraphrasing what the great George Meredith said while correcting Shakespeare's famous maxim: The soul of wit is not actually brevity, it's truth.

-And to paraphrase the great humorist Gogol: Concentrate on the usefulness of your work, and everything else will fall into place.

-Now, a few from Henry James. Striving for perfection in art will always hinder it from reaching its greatest heights.

-True art is only corrupted by an audience; only stifled by a lapse of fond good faith.

-It's our duty as artists to fail over and over again. And I'll add: if you cannot come to terms with this fact, your body and soul will perish along with that stupid meaningless cheap ego of yours, as well as, your identity and all of your intellectual courage.

-Echoing Schiller: We artists observe and select, then blend and unite. And I will add: Art is not a cynical winner-take-all contest. It's an exercise of gratitude and addition while having the courage to believe in your fellow human beings.

-If you are not having fun while thinking about and creating your art, be sure that your method is wrong and unnatural.

-Echoing Mozart: constantly revisit the greatest works.

Now, here's a short list of authors that you should be studying: Shakespeare, Moliere, Schiller, Dostoevsky, Balzac, George Meredith, George Eliot, Gogol, Hugo, Tennyson, Henry James, RLS, Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, Tennessee Williams, and PKD.

[carlnord]

A lot of academic writing is the most awful, virtue signaling drivel, I don't think the authors even like. But when you're a college kid, you don't realize this observation. The best writers seem to be older, with tons of life experiences. This is why I've long believed in the Bukowski method. Don't try, work a series of sh*t jobs, get depressed, drink for a while, let your life turn into a crap-heap... then you'll finally have something interesting to write about.

[R.L.Kramer]

My book is beginning to sink into its plot in the Amazon graveyard. I am not actually a writer. I am a fool. I’ll still go. Thanks for the name of the place.