Bad writing is a deliberate choice

I was listening to a talk the other day with Steven Pinker, a Harvard professor who's spent his entire career studying language and writing.

He’s written nine books and has been thinking about AI since the 1980s.

So when I heard he had something to say about writing in the age of AI, I leaned in.

He had a lot to say, but one idea that stood out to me was this idea that bad writing is a deliberate choice. Most people think bad writing is a talent problem. Like some people are just born better writers than others.

But Pinker says that's not it at all.

The real issue is something you’ve definitely heard of before, but is essential to cover again today, and urgently so. It’s that dreaded problem you’re always hearing about called the curse of knowledge. And instead of glossing over it this time, we’re going to take a closer look.

You’re so deep inside your head, you’re so familiar with your own ideas, that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to not know what you know.

So you write in a way that makes perfect sense to you… but loses everyone else.

It’s not that you’re bad at writing, it’s that you can’t see your reader. And personally, I used to be so completely creatively blocked that I couldn’t publish a single thing no matter how hard I tried. And I had plenty to say. I even knew I was a writer. I knew I was creative. But any time I tried to create something, I could never finish it.

The problem was, I hadn’t learned to establish a connection between my readers and myself.

But once I stopped trying to sound impressive, and started focusing on writing in a way that a younger version of myself could relate to, people started responding.

Turns out, the things you write for yourself, the raw honest stuff, your unpolished opinions, the values you hold that you’re almost afraid to say out loud… those are the things people really resonate with.

And that’s what I think Pinker was getting at.

Bad writing happens when you fail to establish a real connection with your audience. And one of the easiest ways to do that is to write like you're writing to your younger self. Because when you do, there's something genuine between the person behind the words and the person reading them.

Which is why “bad writing is a deliberate choice” is the perfect way to introduce today’s content category inside the Influential Writing System, which is character content.

It’s not about being polished, it’s about having courage and behind honest.

Notes to yourself, your values, your personality, your worldview, your weird little opinions that make people go, “Damn, I feel the same way” or “Finally, someone said it!”

You don’t need perfect grammar for that or viral hooks. You just need to have the guts to say what you actually think.

[CTA FOR GENERAL LIST]:

Inside the Influential Writing System, I walk you through exactly how to write character content, give you a template, and show you how to repurpose a proven post into your own niche.

If you haven't grabbed the dashboard yet, today's a good day to start. It's free, and by the time you get to day four, you'll have written three different types of content and started to find your voice.

Here's the link:

https://influentialwriting.com

Talk soon,

Kevin Hood