Is it okay to be a bad writer if you enjoy what you write?

[alohadave]

I haven't posted anything in several months, but I've been slowly working on a couple stories.

I've known since I started that I'm not a good writer, but I liked what I was posting up. I don't really have the drive to be the best writer ever, but I was hoping that there would be some improvement.

Today I put a draft of a story in DeepSeek and told it to give me a harsh critique. It said it was bad and that I should delete the draft and start over (among other things).

Fine, I told it to be harsh and it was, but it also told me things that I know about my writing.

I don't know what I'm looking for, but is it okay to suck at writing and know you suck, if you like what you write?

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Everybody started out as a bad writer. You get better by writing, and writing what you enjoy is the best thing you can do.

 

[Erozetta]

Yes.

I'll qualify this with: You don't even ever have to get better. If it brings you joy, nothing else really matters. Do the thing that makes you happy. You aren't hurting anyone by doing it so fuck anyone who says otherwise.

 

[SmilingLez]

I haven't posted anything in several months, but I've been slowly working on a couple stories.

I've known since I started that I'm not a good writer, but I liked what I was posting up. I don't really have the drive to be the best writer ever, but I was hoping that there would be some improvement.

Today I put a draft of a story in DeepSeek and told it to give me a harsh critique. It said it was bad and that I should delete the draft and start over (among other things).

Fine, I told it to be harsh and it was, but it also told me things that I know about my writing.

I don't know what I'm looking for, but is it okay to suck at writing and know you suck, if you like what you write?

If you enjoy your stories, chances are at least 1 person will as well. My suggestion - post them (after spell and grammar checks)

 

[StillStunned]

Bad writer! I'm sending you to bed without your dinner. Bad, bad!

More seriously: people write for different reasons, and get different things from it. Me, I love the process of crafting sentences and paragraphs, but I rarely put more than a basic amount of effort into the plot. For others, it's all about the characters, or the emotion, or getting thousands of views.

Measure your quality as a writer by the standard that determines your enjoyment.

 

[Alwaysthesun]

what is it that they say, 'don't get it written right, just get it written' some of the best stories are not necessarily written the best, keep at it

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I'll echo what @Erozetta said, and add that none of us are objective when it comes to our own writing. Sometimes we think too much of it, and sometimes we are overly critical. But the crucial thing is to have fun and fuck everything else.

Always remember you are the one you are doing this for.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

If writing merely for the fulfillment of getting your tale told, then be as bad as you want to be.

However, if you want others to appreciate your tale, you should at least endeavor to improve your skills as you move along. If criticism and low ratings aren't a concern, then the quality of your writing shouldn't be either.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Yes. Don't ask me, ask Stephenie Meyer. Everyone and their mother has shared their thoughts on her work, so much so that I think there's nothing else to be said. Nevertheless, as flawed as her work may be, Meyer loves what she's done. There's no need to outsource the satisfaction of your own writing so that others can tell you whether it is good or bad, regardless of whether the feedback comes from human or machine. You can always improve, if such is your choice, but as everyone else has said, just get it written. Done is better than perfect.

 

[TheLobster]

No, of course it’s not okay! Please hand over your writing loicense this instant

 

[Bamagan]

I haven't posted anything in several months, but I've been slowly working on a couple stories.

I've known since I started that I'm not a good writer, but I liked what I was posting up. I don't really have the drive to be the best writer ever, but I was hoping that there would be some improvement.

Today I put a draft of a story in DeepSeek and told it to give me a harsh critique. It said it was bad and that I should delete the draft and start over (among other things).

Fine, I told it to be harsh and it was, but it also told me things that I know about my writing.

I don't know what I'm looking for, but is it okay to suck at writing and know you suck, if you like what you write?

Just about anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed. It's great if you can put a full ass into a project (and then publish it in Anal), but unless there are lives on the line, I think it's fine to devote just one buttock to a hobby.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I'll echo what @Erozetta said, and add that none of us are objective when it comes to our own writing. Sometimes we think too much of it, and sometimes we are overly critical. But the crucial thing is to have fun and fuck everything else.

Always remember you are the one you are doing this for.

People want different things out of any activity. Some want to master it, to be challenged to improve. Some just enjoy the activity, and have no motivation beyond fun. Others have a mix of both to varying degrees. It’s all good .

 

[MrHereWriting]

I haven't posted anything in several months, but I've been slowly working on a couple stories.

I've known since I started that I'm not a good writer, but I liked what I was posting up. I don't really have the drive to be the best writer ever, but I was hoping that there would be some improvement.

Today I put a draft of a story in DeepSeek and told it to give me a harsh critique. It said it was bad and that I should delete the draft and start over (among other things).

Fine, I told it to be harsh and it was, but it also told me things that I know about my writing.

I don't know what I'm looking for, but is it okay to suck at writing and know you suck, if you like what you write?

I'd rather be bad and happy than good and miserable.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

People want different things out of any activity. Some want to master it, to be challenged to improve. Some just enjoy the activity, and have no motivation beyond fun. Others have a mix of both to varying degrees. It’s all good .

I agree. Fun is crucial and enough on its own, but everything else is just an added bonus. I'm the mix kind of author, but I see no wrong in pursuing fun and not caring about the quality or improvement. In a place like this, especially.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I'd rather be bad and happy than good and miserable.

You know how they say, a good dose of misery is required to be really good.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

You can be terrible at something and still enjoy it.
If that wasn't the case golf wouldn't be a thing. I've got a coworker who is a frequent golfer, he doesn't keep score because that would just make him sad.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I haven't posted anything in several months, but I've been slowly working on a couple stories.

I've known since I started that I'm not a good writer, but I liked what I was posting up. I don't really have the drive to be the best writer ever, but I was hoping that there would be some improvement.

Today I put a draft of a story in DeepSeek and told it to give me a harsh critique. It said it was bad and that I should delete the draft and start over (among other things).

Fine, I told it to be harsh and it was, but it also told me things that I know about my writing.

I don't know what I'm looking for, but is it okay to suck at writing and know you suck, if you like what you write?

Assuming your grammar and spelling are correct, what makes you think you're a bad writer? Some well-regarded professionals over the years have, in my opinion, done work that I didn't care for. Fitzgerald's first novel, This Side of Paradise, was initially rejected by the publishers. When I read it, it struck me as a "first-time out" kind of book. I'm not going to describe everything I thought was wrong with it, but I wasn't impressed. Philip Roth's American Pastoral was another disappointment. Yet many critics loved both books, and the latter won a Pulitzer Prize.

Since you asked about our own stories: it usually takes a while, even a couple of years, until I can fully judge what I've done. There are some very old stories I still like. There are others, well, not so much. I leave them there anyway so I can see where I've been.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Fuck Deepseek. I've seen your improvement and I think it's awesome.

The only quality metric that matters is your own.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I feel like I have the same problem though. I write so much slower than I did when I started. I'm proud of how good my work is when I finish it, but sometimes it feels like i'm doing 10x as much work as I used to and am getting 1/20th of the output.

EDIT: trying to find the balance of "doing something that makes me happy" vs "making it as good as I can, which involves (for example) big brain dives into everyone's motivations at all times" is something I haven't figured out.

 

[SkyBubble]

Yes, many people are bad writers. Some are even published. Most of us get better the more we write.

However, if you're a bad writer, I wouldn't expect a big audience.

You seem to write perfectly fine.

 

[Statius]

I'm a not so good writer and a few months back decided I wanted to change that. Every draft since has been boring as fuck, but technically sound. I lost the fun, the reason I started writing here to begin with. I recently decided that maybe, just maybe, because I never had the will, drive, motivation to be a 'real writer', that I should probably just get back to the fun of it, with of course better Grammer. Now this is MY personal experience, but for me, it's gotta be about the fun of telling a story as best I can. Fuck it if they don't like it. It's nice when they do, and I want people to like it, but really it's a free site, so like everyone else keeps saying, write for you.

 

[iwatchus]

To paraphrase a woman much wiser than me, "When you're bad, you're very very good."

 

[ElectricBlue]

I haven't posted anything in several months, but I've been slowly working on a couple stories.

I've known since I started that I'm not a good writer, but I liked what I was posting up. I don't really have the drive to be the best writer ever, but I was hoping that there would be some improvement.

There probably is, but maybe you just can't see it.

Today I put a draft of a story in DeepSeek and told it to give me a harsh critique. It said it was bad and that I should delete the draft and start over (among other things).

Why did you do that? Ask a human being, not some device in its own reinforcement loop, pushing you towards being bland and predictable.

Fine, I told it to be harsh and it was, but it also told me things that I know about my writing.

That's self-defeating, and now you've got a machine reinforcing your own doubts. Did you mean, that you didn't know about your writing?

I don't know what I'm looking for, but is it okay to suck at writing and know you suck, if you like what you write?

As the others say, it's completely down to you and what you get out of it. I'd keep away from the AI "assistance" though - not sure that's going to really help.

 

[AG31]

I haven't posted anything in several months, but I've been slowly working on a couple stories.

I've known since I started that I'm not a good writer, but I liked what I was posting up. I don't really have the drive to be the best writer ever, but I was hoping that there would be some improvement.

Today I put a draft of a story in DeepSeek and told it to give me a harsh critique. It said it was bad and that I should delete the draft and start over (among other things).

Fine, I told it to be harsh and it was, but it also told me things that I know about my writing.

I don't know what I'm looking for, but is it okay to suck at writing and know you suck, if you like what you write?

Absolutely. If you like what you write, chances are other people will too. Some of the stories that have stayed with me longest were, objectively, written quite poorly. But they had passion. And they stuck.

 

[Britva415]

I don't know what I'm looking for, but is it okay to suck at writing and know you suck, if you like what you write?

Is the question here really "Is it OK to like what you write when you believe that you suck?"

Either way, the answer is, Of course.