Tendencies in Strong Writing

1. ‘no ideas but in things’ (Pound); the sensual, the action, the concrete

2. creates tension, questions, mystery

3. doesn’t rewrite what has already been done; avoids cliché; ‘if it’s possible, why do it?’ (Stein)

4. edited, rewritten, workshopped; had a writing community read it already

5. not about something the author didn’t know; lived or researched

6. aware of form; not constructed by default

7. aware of contemporaries in the genre/style

8. takes chances; surprises; lets language loose

9. many-leveled; rich and available for multiple readings

10. clean, copyedited, and free of reading stumbles