<p>What’s your definition of a good (not great) writer? Can anyone become a good writer?</p>
<p>Sorry if I sound like an essay prompt, folks.</p>
<p>I think almost anyone can become a good writer, it’s not so easy to become a great writer. Good writing is like pornography - I know it when I see it. :)</p>
<p>More helpfully, I think good non-fiction writing is cogent, concise, well-organized and doesn’t use a lot of jargon or overly long and convoluted sentences.</p>
<p>Funny. When I saw the title I thought you were talking about the book On Writing Well.
Hard to say. I think a good writer is someone who is able to express their point (be it in the form of prose, poetry, etc.) clearly and strongly. I think a great writer is able to formulate whatever they write (prose, poetry, etc.) to be coherent in some way, and gets across whatever it is that they want to express–a feeling, an argument, the way to install a DVD player, or a story to the reader in a way that conveys their point and emotion.
I think anyone can become a decent writer; I don’t know about good. I have pretty high standards, though.</p>