[skilled]

There's no such thing as better writer. You either have passion and then use inspiration to fuel that passion or you don't. Not everyone is privileged to have higher-education or have the ability to learn the entire Oxford dictionary.

I've worked with editors at Fast Company, Entrepreneur, TheNextWeb and others, and I have not _ever_ tried to read a book to make myself a better writer. What does that even mean?

And on numerous occasions I have gotten away with submitting first drafts that get published "as is" without anyone telling me otherwise. Am I some omnipotent writer, or were the editors incompetent? I doubt it.

I think what a lot of people also don't understand about writing is that some of the best work out there (articles, books, etc.), for the person who put it out - it can be compared to having participated in a triathlon because it has THAT immense of an effect on your mental state of being.

Want to be a better writer? Find out what your passion is and write about that. No book and no order of semicolons is going to make you "better" unless what you write about is what lights the fire underneath your feet.

[greymalik]

> There's no such thing as better writer

If someone hones their craft such that they become more effective at articulating their thoughts, at making their argument more persuasive, at moving their audience, at reaching more people, wouldn’t we say that they’ve become a better writer than they used to be?

[skilled]

I'd call those people marketers.

[unlaxedneurotic]

Say there are two people with same understanding of a nuanced argument. One fails to articulate that argument in a written form such that the reader is able to understand it. The other is successful in doing that. I'll say the second person is a better writer. No marketing involved.

[dasil003]

> Want to be a better writer? Find out what your passion is and write about that. No book and no order of semicolons is going to make you "better" unless what you write about is what lights the fire underneath your feet.

That's fine if your goal is to become a Writer. However if writing is just the means to the end of communicating an idea or persuading an audience, then it may not be possible to align your passion. That doesn't make improving your technique any less important or achievable though.

[skilled]

Yes, and that what's I'm arguing. There should be a distinction whenever a title such as "read this to become better" is presented, especially for writing.

There's no consideration for the absolute basic level of entry to writing, and it imposes on the person an unrealistic perspective which may lead that person on a meaningless journey on "becoming" something that they are inherently not able to become.

Hence me mentioning higher education. I'm well aware of people who are absolute artists with words, but that same story can be said/explained in practical ways.

Perhaps I should have made that clearer.

[GavinMcG]

It seems like you're using a different definition of "better" than the article author or most of the people responding to your comment. You seem to treat things as a binary – as though the headline is only justified if it can take a non-writer and turn them into a writer. And in that light, your criticism makes sense: reading an article isn't going to do the job without passion and a certain latent capability.

But I'd suggest that others mean "better" in the relative sense of "greater than" or "more" and mean it to refer to skill or dexterity of a sort. If someone has a certain degree of skill or dexterity – the degree that makes them a member of the article's target audience – then, the author is claiming, they can increase their skill by engaging with the recommended material. And I'm curious whether you disagree with that position.

If you agree with it, this might just be a case where people are talking past each other based on different definitions, despite agreeing about the substance of the article.

[GavinMcG]

> Not everyone is privileged to have higher-education or have the ability to learn the entire Oxford dictionary.

That you bring up education and vocabulary suggests that you do think there's such a thing as better writers. One obvious example: compare a given three-year-old to you. You are almost certainly a better writer. Compare you at three years old to today. Same story.

Sure, you may be right that passion is required. But why dismiss skill?

[skilled]

Exactly, I am talking about skill and the use of words as a means to add flare to a story, but it does not make you better. Just because you can translate a black and white story (which conveys the message/lesson) using all the colors of a rainbow does not make you better.

[GavinMcG]

Do you mean "flair"?

You're right that people can disagree about what to value, but I'd think that given a set of values, maximizing them is better than not. If you're a writer who does care about using all the colors of a rainbow, doesn't learning how to use indigo and orange make you better than when you only knew black, white, red, and green?

[copperx]

Thank you. I'm not a writer, but there's an undeniable urge to communicate when I feel excited about something, especially when I have synthesized new knowledge. I suspect this urge is universal.

That being said, achieving clarity often requires tremendous effort.