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 .

[@EricKay_Scifi]

Reading it outloud or at least getting it read to you, is a great step to do when editing.

[@justinedse8435]

Yes! Bingo! A lot of poetry I'm seeing is not relatable at all. It feels like high art, and the poem may zig zag to the left or right and look pretty, but it doesn't feel real.

[@patricksanders7988]

Mr. Wallace doesn't pay as much attention to breath as he used to

[@marinamaddox6285]

​@@patricksanders7988i literally lolled

[@roc7880]

they remove any breathing from you writing in college, so you learn not to do this, it is actively suppressed.

[@ocdtdc]

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

[@penelopegreene]

😆

[@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

[@justinedse8435]

@zoobee Precisely. This type of poetry can be spotted a mile away. It feels dishonest and not relatable. Unfortunately for whatever reason, I have seen this type in magazines. I'm not sure why, the only explanation I can think of is that the editors have their heads up their asses. That's what Bukowski uses to say.

[@sartavin]

@@justinedse8435 Publishing by and large is dominated by middle class/upper middle class white women, and you walk into a Barnes and Nobles, you can see that influence quite openly.

[@samtehranipour8087]

It’s poetry that is poetry because Rupi Kaur is a poet. Self-fulfulling..

[@thing_under_the_stairs]

I recognise her kind of work from stuff I'd scribbled in notebooks in high school. Stuff that I knew was never going to see the light of day, let alone be published. High school notebook stuff should stay in those notebooks.

[@idontknowyetwhoiam]

Screenshotting this. Thank you for putting my thoughts into words.

[@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 😅

[@thedialectic6346]

Those who know often know their failings on an intimate level.

[@anarchynow4756]

That first quote was quite terribly written/spoken, ironically.

[@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.

[@WriteConscious]

Yes!

[@ndep93]

I used to work in a law firm and the senior partner there would totally tear my work apart. He would say something along the lines of "you're not totally saying what needs to be said" in whatever our stance was. He really took his time in teaching me how to get our point across in writing - his former career in teaching came in handy there. I took that lesson to heart in literally everything I write: texts, emails, briefs...you'd be shocked how much writing, and quality writing, comes into our everyday lives.

[@zazenbo]

I miss my wife

[@polymathpilgrim207]

based

[@RobinNightLight]

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

[@akeithing1841]

I write songs and that has been huge for me. Taking out unnecessary words is key to clarity

[@solitarianihilista1454]

"The adverb is not your friend." - Stephen King

[@akeithing1841]

@@solitarianihilista1454 Adverbs are the worst! I spent years growing up wanting to learn as many words as I could only to learn not to use most of them:)

[@maxkproductions]

@@greatcoldemptiness the irony too is that David Foster Wallace's writing style was full of unnecessary words

[@carlandrews5810]

Not an actual quote.

[@bjwnashe5589]

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.

[@woo1818]

I too have used my powers for evil.

[@mizukarate]

@@woo1818 Im not evil.....but I fight like a crazy person

[@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.

[@roarbertbearatheon8565]

Hawk? Hawk tuah? lol

[@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.

[@marcusappelberg369]

Yes, KDP has millions of books, so it is hard for one book to stand out.

[@toddjacksonpoetry]

Publishing is just the beginning. Then you've got to get out and push. This is doubly true with self-publishing. “In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you're a great writer, you must say that you are.” ― Gore Vidal

[@DEWwords]

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

[@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."

[@katemara667]

I would recommend practising writing rhyming poems in strict form, sonnets for example. This forces you to be disciplined, to think about the point you're making, to express it succinctly, and to develop an inner 'ear' for the rhythm and sound of words. Good luck with your writing!

[@gristlevonraben]

@@katemara667 thank you! maybe you would like this one, Ms Katemara? Autumn Is a Dancer Autumn is a dancer, arrayed in gold and red, twirling in the meadows, with leaves upon her head, She's a storm in the hollows, that wets the spider's web, and teems the brooks with minnows, and lays the bears to bed, She's a blessing to hearth and home, with teas and spice and bread, and fills my eyes with glory, when summer's green has fled, She's a Fae, of the Orange Moon, reading books that should not be read, She's a mystic of the secret, of the oscillating thread- that winds between the living, and the living we thought were dead! Autumn is a dancer, arrayed in gold and red, twirling in the meadows, with stars above her head.

[@moonshine5198]

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@gristlevonrabenPoetry is not my art form but I like your poems :) I think your imagery and use of the five senses are effective. You could get more specific and utilize our sense of taste (and therefore smell). For example, you could omit a couple of the “ands” in the line “with tea and spice and bread” for something like: “with tea, warm spice, rye bread.” This keeps the flow the same while adding more description. Also you don’t need a comma after “fae” in the line “She’s a fae, of the Orange Moon” Thanks for sharing your art!

[@jordanramsey5763]

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

[@thommccarthy1139]

Would be cool if this happened to musicians but we repeatedly get 4-6 chord same shit over and over, mainstream , 'indie', underground, metal etc. really is insane.

[@jordanramsey5763]

@@thommccarthy1139 I mean yeahhh but once you understand music theory as well as the engineering side of things you realize it’s all a popularity competition veiled by nepotism and “trade secrets”. Music is just a very simple art form at its most aesthetically pleasing core that generation after generation has attempted to turn into a money machine through endless façades and superfluous opinions; From buskers to billionaires.

[@Yuckod]

@@thommccarthy1139 listen to the band psyopus

[@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.

[@lightningninja6905]

While I agree with the concern about people being unable to communicate effectively, I think the examples presented are some of the weakest ones, especially since they almost exclusively apply to the written word, when there's a whole world of verbal communication. Chances are, unless the punctuation is horrendous, it doesn't prevent someone from knowing the words being communicated. When talking about this concern, I'd be more worried about the invasion of memes and in jokes into language. These make it harder to communicate across digital cultural ground. I think we've all seen political arguments that devolve into both sides basically posting memes against their opponents.

[@DKFynn]

What you said about memes reminded me of some people's tendency to (with regard to someone else who says something they don't like) say "That person's just an [insert label here]." They label or categorize that person (a lot of the time erroneously) without actually listening to what they have to say. They basically attack the messenger, not the message. One political example of this has to do with...say...questioning the actions of a certain nation or ideology. If someone doesn't like what a certain nation does or disagrees with an ideology, then they're labeled as [insert label here]." While this is a bit outside the strict realm of language, it is interesting to keep in mind.

[@sirchristopher7684]

Memetics are effective in cultural warfare because the lowest intellect of a particular group can understand the gist of an idea. I'm not sure if this is necessarily a bad thing, just don't expect to have a nuanced conversation with the average ideologue.

[@susanalfieri4487]

Communication is so important. If you can't write clearly (including using proper punctuation and capitalization), how can you communicate your ideas? Your needs? Your love? Your advice? Your news? Your dreams? Your goals? Your complaints? Knowing the rules of writing is EVERYTHING.

[@RayDesmond587]

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

[@thundercheeks1989]

Hell yea trash gang stand up

[@francinem4944]

it's how i get to the B plot and flesh out the characters!

[@postrock12]

Good enjoy it. Enjoy the creative process & it’s therapeutic 🖤💚

[@adrianbalmes5704]

bro's got me engaged, like what i'm not doing i should be a writer, learn all the foundation yesterday not soon. then i remember i have work and worries about work. broh makes good points but plz start making a courser on writing fundamentals. i only know these!?

[@paultapping9510]

"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.

[@ernestmendez5487]

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.

[@carlnord6590]

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.

[@stefanbaciu3121]

You are a writer, maybe an unsuccessful one at the moment, but a writer no less. Remember that Moby Dick would’ve probably ended up in the Kindle Graveyard. A lot of the greats were unsuccessful, even McCarthy

[@moesypittounikos]

Compared the Victorian prose, or even the prose of Edward Gibbon, we indeed suck at writing. Maybe technology and this super busy life leads to typing rather than writing?

[@andreydoronin6995]

The problem is that most people today don't read books. Compared to cinema, video games and comic books, literature is an extremely niche medium. There are probably more people writing books than there are people reading them.

[@iuseitToo]

Ol' rupi kaur and those carcinogenic words swimming thru so much white space page after page leaving only malignancy and regret behind....

[@Iron-Bridge]

I'm neither American nor British and English isn't my first language. Yet I have found a lot of value in your sharing here. Specifically the importance of writing in context instead of merely spewing words and forms the same way all the time.

[@BeyondBlueBallsPodcast]

Always felt David Fostor Wallace slid firmly in the box he tried to define his whole life

[@jeffcurry1280]

You just identified the noise my mind makes when I sit down to my WIP on my typewriter! Lol

[@selim.digital]

I’m glad I found you. I have been publishing my writing in my blog. It was intimidating at first time share my work but the fact that nobody was reading it at first really helped. I’ve posted about 70 essays and now feel comfortable with the idea that I am just going to keep doing this as an activity to help quiet down the monkey mind, and, hopefully, offer some modicum of value to anyone who is willing to spend 10 minutes reading my thoughts. Looking forward to sharing this writing and thinking journey with you!

[@AJ-oc5eh]

That quotation may not have been replete with run-on sentences, but it may as well have been. It achieved the same effect.

[@donaldbutcher1260]

Almost as hard as finding a good writer is finding a good reader!😊

[@Misserbi]

Your mention of MFA and PhD idiots hit it out of the park. When I finished my BA (which took me twice as long to do) it took me 7 years to decide to raise my level again. I tried a magistrate's in philology (I dropped out after a month), then a MFA (was denied entry because of my writing samples), and decided on a MAEd program and I finished on time with a 3.7 and higher GPA. My point is most high school graduates don't know what to expect and what they will do when and if they even finish? I didn't. I was going with the flow for most of my life. Something needs to happen, like a break through, in order to pinpoint what you really are meant to do. I believe that whole heartedly. I realized fiction and poetry was for me because every time I finished a program I always came back to it. I am 13 years out of my last program and am getting ready to publish my first novel. The major hurdles are gone because I dedicated 110% of my energy into learning the craft and not giving up on anything. I think that is how to reach 1 million words and total confidence. Otherwise you are still processing and not actually applying your best effort. That is what is worthy of others time!! ⏰

[@lukedmoss]

That's incredible!

[@obscurecomics5849]

I think most bad writing comes down to not enough editing. It's just people writing something quickly and tosding it out there.

[@twoface4458]

I like watching Write Conscious because I like the way he says the word "Headquarters".

[@ScreamingIntoTheOvoid]

When you say that less than 1% of students (and Americans) cannot write I feel like you meant to say the opposite. Did I mishear or misunderstand? Or was it a slip of the tongue in the flow of speech?

[@TractorCountdown]

I thought he meant to say the opposite too.

[@MichaelLisk]

Is he describing his own writing?

[@rightsaidfred8945]

so where are these quotes from, which writing by DFW?...

[@SkullyTheHypnoSkull]

You don't teach the trivium in public school, and you think students will be able to form their own rhetoric? Good luck.

[@ballybunion9]

🤔 3:51: _I would guess that less than 1% of kids graduating high school cannot write._ Isn't that the goal of a high school English teacher? 🤨

[@WriteConscious]

Mispoke. 99% of kids who graduate high school cannot write a decent sentence and below average paragraph is what I meant to say.

[@mattparsons2045]

I think I'm at best a mediocre writer. But I'm not a half bad editor. Revision, revision, revision. Gradually improve the story by finding the flaws and removing them one at a time. Carve it into shape like whittling wood.

[@Pemulis1]

Years ago when I did Reddit I commented that if you hadn't read around a thousand books by the time you graduated high school you were probably never going to be an excellent writer (competent, maybe - which 99.99 % of the time is good enough). It was savagely downvoted. But it comes down to whether or not you have become so proficient that it's unconscious, and you do that through youthful immersion. Picasso could break all the rules of perspective meaningfully and beautifully because he could draw like da Vinci at the age of seven (his dad was an art teacher). When everybody gets a gold star, gold stars mean jack shit.

[@Theomite]

That's why I could never get into teaching: I actually care about education, and nobody in the school system does--especially the parents. Don't forget the prevalence of MFA programs basically teaching wannabes how to game-ify the writing process so they don't have to learn how to get good--they can just common core it and get something finished. And it reads the same as everybody else's shit.

[@QueensWino]

Kindle Graveyard? I like the sound of that!😂

[@phillipchavez1321]

📝 6:14-06:50 tips to better your writing 11:29- 14:54 “don’t make everything too human-centric.” + tips

[@ScreamingIntoTheOvoid]

Also saying that "Infinite Jest" is the most unfinished book makes it seem ( to me, anyway) that the author didn't finish it. There must be a one word synonym for dnf.

[@Lmaoh5150]

Maybe “most dropped book”?

[@akeithing1841]

He and the editor took 500 pages out and it already has 1076 pages! I love the book, it does have an ambiguous open ending that he wanted to make the reader linger with. It's kind of maddening but it is still somehow fun

[@enriquelobos950]

What a bunch of bloated hackneyed nonsense! Your AP students would be perfectly justified in calling you out on your BS! Interestingly, the quote of DFW's you present serves as a sort of self-referential rorschach test. Who was it that said the things that bother you most about other people are the things that bother you most about yourself?

[@kengause9259]

I applaud your crusade to make better writers of us all. But there is another fight to be had out there and that is finding a way to get that great prose in front of eyeballs. As you noted there is a lot of drivel coming out of the top publishing houses. Same themes, same tortured writing. Some of it may even pass the technical proficiency bar but is just plain boring. Yet, those books populate the bookstores and sit atop of the search algorithms. This is not to say that self-published books get a pass. Many of those books are unreadable and just add to the noise for the poor reader looking for something good to read. What can do to make good writing (be it traditionally published or self-published) accessible to readers? It's not Amazon. It's not Goodreads. I feel for those authors who labor at their desks for years only to produce well written, clever books that never see the light of day. Talk about self-esteem crushing. If we could find a way to give these authors an easy way to showcase their work (something more than telling them to market their brains out), it might foster a love of writing that could address the issues you raised in this video. Maybe if we push AI in the direction of creating more sophisticated search engines that can cut through existing algorithms, maybe we might have a way of identifying the nuggets of good writing that are out there.

[@truanarchy6315]

My go to example on how to write is the Art Of War by Sun Tzu. He wrote it simple for people to learn his strategy.

[@cosmospray]

Important vidéo, major videos, please release more of that, i wish i couls attempt to your course but i write in french

[@jacobcastro8026]

So your saying don't write art if your not smart? Sounds elitist, what if someone grew up in poor conditions with little chances at an education... Nah I'll just write from the heart.

[@blurredlenzpictures3251]

I read one of my poems out loud to a large group yesterday, in front of City Hall in my hometown, at a protest rally. It was my first time reading one of my pieces in public.

[@felipeestevez1436]

How did it go?

[@blurredlenzpictures3251]

@felipeestevez1436 I made it through lol reading into a megaphone and trying to hold my notepad as the wind blew, I shook like a leaf, but was very proud to have the guts to do it haha. Luckily, it was short, and I don't think I studdered and received positive feedback afterward.

[@Carl2988carl]

Your poem was probably cringe garbage if you're reading it at a protest.

[@NiteOwl2000]

I realized this with myself when I tried biting off the writing styles of sci fi authors like Ted Chiang, Ken Liu, and Cixin Liu. I felt like I wouldn’t be taken seriously as a sci fi writer unless I could give you the verbal blueprint for the robot in my story.

[@thing_under_the_stairs]

Or good old Neil Stevenson, who wrote a full chapter of a programming manual into at least one novel...

[@chaplainsunshine]

I met with a Masters degree holder. He wrote "There are three versions here. One with X and one without." He also managed to misspell 'August' as 'Auguest' in a word processor.

[@kentjensen4504]

Why do English speakers add this odd R sound into German names with the letters OE? Goethe becomes "gurtay", Goebbels becomes "gurbels". the OE is like your UH sound, except drawn out. When you you're thinking and searching for a word or decision, and you go LEMME THINK UUUHH, that UUUHHH sound is very close to the German OE.

[@pawel198812]

The NURSE vowel is the closest sound English has to the German Ö

[@kentjensen4504]

@@pawel198812 Exactly, except some might then think the R in NURSE is also part of that vowel. The main point here is that whether that vowel is said exactly right or not is not as important as not having the R there. There is no R sound involved with Ö or OE in German. GOBELS sounds closer to the German than the ludicrous "GURBLES".

[@blakegrimes3557]

You don’t have to make sales to be a writer, ffs

[@WriteConscious]

Sales don't matter. Changing people's lives with your art matter. However, if you're not publishing online for free or for money then you're being selfish.

[@blakegrimes3557]

@@WriteConscious okay man 👍

[@aisle_of_view]

I'll ask Chat GPT for the answer

[@gamersbilingue8653]

The latest Claude Is cheating in writing. Lol. Its actually insane. And I dont mean using to write. It writes garbage, I mean using It as an editor. It proceses an entire book and finds all basic flaws - even plotholes you failed to notice.

[@gamersbilingue8653]

The latest Claude Is cheating in writing. Lol. Its actually insane. And I dont mean using to write. It writes garbage, I mean using It as an editor. It proceses an entire book and finds all basic flaws - even plotholes you failed to notice.

[@KenNeumeister]

Most things written are only about proving one to be qualified for membership in a group. Meanwhile, most things that are read are either about figuring out how to get qualified in the group if outside that group, or about deciding whether to admit someone new into the group. This is a complete ecosystem of writing separate from other pursuits also called writing.

[@SLRagen]

I enjoyed this video. It’s nice to hear the honesty!

[@jaime8318]

Because among younger writers, so many of them are barely literate.

[@capguncarcrash]

you teach at a conservative school? i find that so fascinating. i grew up mormon in a extremely conservative area and had a few secret leftist mentors, not unlike you i suspect, help me like, not die. love this video and will be checking out the rest of your channel

[@onlynameMrBlank]

Seems like most writers would recoil at the thought of learning sentence structure, punctuation, syntax, etc., and if they do, they have no business calling themselves serious writers. That's like a painter refusing to learn the difference between oils, watercolors, or how to use different brushes; this is the medium you're working in, and you have no desire to understand how it works? Then go home and give up, or at the very least, never have the gall to consider yourself serious about it when you treat it like a casual, part time hobby.

[@gelidsoul]

This makes me want to know your opinion on James Joyce.

[@daveo6337]

I've been watching a bunch of your video's. Good stuff, great content... your a wild man.

[@ernestschultz5065]

DFW is, imo, an incredibly overrated writer. Tedious and pretentious are just 2 words that come to mind. He's been glorified because he decided to take his own life. At least Kurt Cobain had talent.

[@WriteConscious]

You haven't read him lol

[@Carl2988carl]

​@WriteConscious no DFW sucks. Franzen is good.

[@BrainCandied]

Do you recommend any books on writing?

[@socratesagain7822]

Sadly, tried to join writing class. Entered my emailed code. Nothing happened beyond the 150 character bio. Do not have FB, so blocked from further attempts. Merely wanted exercises to help get into the habit of writing word-pictures. Be well.

[@serious_philosopheegeez2294]

Um, what you read from Wallace just now isn't the best example of writing. Talk about 'verbose'..

[@WriteConscious]

This is a transcribed quote from a verbal interview. It was never released as audio. So, try again with the polemics.

[@woo1818]

I don’t suck; I write good.

[@samuelgulliver9108]

Where can we read your writing?

[@DetectiveAgent_DarkNut]

Fan Bloody Tastic young man!!!! This writer (everyday 23 years) approves! Detective Agent DarkNut

[@mikelpelaez]

11:55 can someone give me an example of an Spanish symbolist in poetry? I'm interested in Spanish literature (I'm a native Spanish speaker myself) but I never heard of the movement

[@TheKnightBefore]

Antonio Machado, Jose Marti, and Cesar Vallejo are Spanish-speaking poets mentioned a lot on this channel.

[@mikelpelaez]

@@TheKnightBefore I didn't knew that he spoke about Machado.

[@WriteConscious]

Yeah, all of those guys. Could throw Lorca and Juan Ramon Jiminez in too. I am more interested and more well-versed in poetry than fiction. However, I talked about poetry for four years across 200 videos and got 100 subs and 9,000 total views lmao. Even when I try to talk about poetry now the videos tank. So, I am going to save the poetry stuff for my free writing course and on my Substack. Just wrote a free post on poetry yesterday that I'd think you'd like here writeconscious.substack.com/p/the-anxiety-of-poets-egotism

[@mikelpelaez]

@@WriteConscious I love Lorca (top 3 poets for me, with Rilke and probably Baudelaire, although I haven't read that much poetry).

[@mikelpelaez]

@@WriteConscious I read the post, I really liked it a lot. The actual reason I started reading literature was because I enjoyed writing poetry and I wanted to improve.

[@deliii395]

Rupi Kaur is the only popular writer I've seen unmask U.S.'s genocide in palestine and has been vocal about her support for Palestine. The letter she wrote is an incredible piece of writing. She through her actions and writings at such a crucial time is a better writer, a better person than the best of them. A writer who can't write about truth is no artist.

[@BrObstreperous]

Still more concerned with clout-chasing than truth-telling

[@ruolavoro]

DFW is a great example of what he himself criticized. he relies on irony in a hypocritical way to evade criticism of his verbose and pseudo-methodological style. As a more elegant friend of mine said: "Writing a negative review of IJ is difficult because the book has its own immune system. The book rejects criticism before it's even made by arch-meta-self-consciously attacking itself first in an ain't-I-witty way but: hey wait, that really was a good point, don't dismiss it yet; just because you did it to yourself first doesn't mean it's not valid logic, etc. Another self-defense: it's badly written because it's a commentary on addiction/entertainment/the addled mind that comes from just being in this postmodern fuckery that is our world, and thus the prose reflects that same state of mind--this is such a flawed argument that I don't even wanna begin to address."

[@susanalfieri4487]

I am currently reading Leif Enger's new book, I CHEERFULLY REFUSE, and I find the writing lyrical and beautiful. Of course, the characters and the story are great as well, but the actual writing (at the paragraph and sentence level) is sublime. Check him out if you haven't yet. He clearly understands what you're talking about here. The book is literary fiction at its best. Highly recommend.

[@writeralbertlanier3434]

I think to be fair it's different writing for certain, specific audiences Academic writing is not intended to be simple or easy to follow but comprehensible to scholars and professors. Same with Doctors or Lawyers. I get that simpler prose can be better but when I was a journalist, you had to write in a way that the reader could understand. I guess it's different for other fields

[@ianomalley6100]

I can see what DFW meant about writers substituting feighned inteligence for complexity. Or the feeling to make things more complex than they need to be I often find myself doing this in an attempt to create novel ideas that dont look like 1:1 facsimiles of better works ive read, watched, or avsorbed through cultural osmosis

[@gothxm]

Its ironic because his quote can be a bit too verbose as well lol. I think hes referring to his past self too. Coming from the guy who writes the way he does make it funny, maybe its a bit tongue in cheek i suppose.

[@dimmiandreus392]

You become better with either theory or practice. With both you become better faster. Majority of kids do not write prose everyday but there are some kids that practice writing from young age that are good at writing prose better than adults. In the end, what authors choose to write is a matter of personal preference. For example, some writers might have read a book in their childhood and then only write genre of the first book that they liked. Other might like to go with trends and choose to write the genres and tropes that are most popular. Others might like to experiment with different genres and different trope every book they write.

[@mikec6733]

Me write good

[@EyeLean5280]

It's not for me to judge, but I've been told I'm a good writer. I don't dwell on other people's challenges as writers, let alone go online to complain about it. Life's too short.

[@roc7880]

DFW was also a teacher of writing, and he saw lots of examples in his job. We missed him in AZ.

[@watcherofthewest8597]

I imagine Ian is very well liked by students, and very much not a fit in the cogs for the public school bureaucratic machine

[@Islaras]

❤❤❤

[@stringfellowbalk2654]

I think I've learned long ago how petty the literati can be.

[@gametheorymedia]

It's kinda disconcerting and ironic that a significant chunk of Wallace's first, lengthy quote presented here ("It seems to me---")...is just SO clunkily, poorly written! o_0

[@WriteConscious]

This is a transcribed quote from a verbal interview. It was never released as audio.

[@joecruz03]

Yes, Hemingway's "Iceberg theory"

[@SSNewberry]

You probably can write. It is not on display in this post.

[@jimmyburlapsack]

I was with you until you slipped in incel between know it all and nerd. Those are not all the same and if someone is calling you a incel there's probably a reason for it. And trust me its not because they think your intelligent, write better, or jealous. Just weird Freudian slip or some shit idk the rest of the video seemed cool

[@susanalfieri4487]

I do think that was a simple slip-up in language. Easy to do when you're talking extemporaneously, as he is doing in this video. Because, you're right, it doesn't belong there.

[@sethreyes8988]

There is so much more to writing than what is publicly available or even popular enough to stay in stores. The best writers often have the tiniest communities from my experience

[@WriteConscious]

Agreed!

[@haraldcarlsten6238]

What do you think about my favourite book "Herzog"?

[@AllOneVoice]

THANK YOU FOR PUTTING RUPI ON THE THUMBNAIL.

[@MyWritingJourney9]

Thanks buddy!! I appreciate you !!!

[@JD-vj4go]

Bad writers make more money than good writers.

[@Ivxnrxjxs]

I'm not even going to bother reading it at this point...

[@getstakerized]

But I never said I was good! ;)

[@ryanh8764]

What in the AI Facetune on that DFW thumbnail? 😂

[@WriteConscious]

All DFW face shots I've found are blurry when blown up to thumbnail size! I have had to enhance and colorize a lot of his photos. Cormac McCarthy has more high-quality photographs than Wallace, which is crazy lol

[@ryanh8764]

@@WriteConscious it’s all good I thought it was funny. Love the vids.

[@WriteConscious]

Thanks brotha!

[@robertsouth6971]

Should you write about a tree and make it sound beautiful, or should you write about a tree and make it sound true?

[@Amanita._.Verosa._.]

Beauty and brevity do not have to be exclusive.

[@s0urp0wer5]

When GOATS speak, listen

[@serpico5394]

Yet these bad writers sell tons of books.

[@deadpoet9392]

Rupi is overrated af

[@penelopegreene]

I DO have ringing in the ear! 😁

[@uscbro69]

Wallace sucked