Watching a movie over the weekend I was struck by a question asked. “What is excellence?” This character had been encouraged their entire life to be nothing short of excellent and as they struggled throughout their life to achieve that goal, it finally dawned on them that they didn’t now exactly what it meant for them to be excellent.
That, in turn, prompted me to wonder as to the definition of “excellence” for writing. The easy answer, and of course the most commercial, would be reaching a best sellers list and selling thousands and thousands of copies of your book. However, depending on whom you ask, even those milestones would not be enough for some. Barbara Cartland and Nora Roberts, both having achieved numerous best seller lists and sales in the millions of their romance novels, would certainly have achieved excellence, yet those who write more high brow works may not have considered those achievements as excellence.
Is it the subject of the work, the complexity of the writing as exampled by multisyllable works or complex and lengthy sentences that make writing excellent? With hundreds of millions of readers worldwide, I would argue that it is the reader that determines whether a writer is excellent as each reader’s personal preferences often determine whether they give a book a thumbs up or thumbs down.
If you are a writer you may know what the Flesch-Kincaid grade level is. This statistic calculates the readability of a document and compares it to the general education levels. What you may not know is that Reader’s Digest, a magazine that is still in circulation after over a full century and is distributed in twenty-two countries, was and always has been designed to have a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 8. Translated that means that someone with an eighth grade education would be able to read and comprehend the writing. Although I would hope that it has gone up since Reader’s Digest based their writing on that statistic, it appeared that eighth grade was the average education level for the majority of readers and thus, the sweet spot where the majority of readers would enjoy the publication.
So, if you write about grade level 8 do you risk losing readers? Or, on the flip side of that, if you write at a lower level, is your writing seen as too basic and therefore not excellent?
Another measure of excellence in writing could certainly be decided by readers and their reviews and/or the impression an author leaves with readers when they finish a book. Have you received a lot of reviews; especially four and five star reviews? Is word of mouth spreading about your wonderful book? Are your readers waiting with bated breath for your next book to be published?
As you can see, there are any number of ways to quantify excellence as a writer, but for me, excellence as a writer boils down to something far more basic and personal. Did I tell the story I wanted to tell? Did I write it using good grammar? Will my readers want to come back for more?
While awards and accolades are one thing, and I certainly wouldn’t reject any such honor, my goal will always be to tell a story to the best of my ability in a way that would make my high school English teacher proud!
Author Barbara A. Luker 