What Makes a Good Writer? (originally written by Zadie Smith)

From the archive.

The tale of Clive

I want you to think of a young man called Clive. Clive is on a familiar literary mission: he wants to write the perfect novel. Clive has a lot going for him: he’s intelligent and well read he’s made a study of contemporary fiction and can see clearly where his peers have gone wrong. He has read a good deal of rigorous literary theory — those elegant blueprints for novels not yet built — and is now ready to build his own unparalleled house of words. Maybe Clive even teaches novels, takes them apart and puts them back together. If writing is a craft, he has all the skills, every tool. Clive is ready. He clears out the spare room in his flat, invests in an ergonomic chair, and sits down in front of the blank possibility of the Microsoft Word program. Hovering above his desktop he sees the perfect outline of his platonic novel — all he need do is drag it from the ether into the real. He’s excited. He begins.

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