Thoughts on Bad Writer by Michael Mohammed Ahmad

Objective Signs of Creative Subjectivity

In Bad Writer, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, an Australian-born Lebanese writer residing in Sydney, vividly reproduces a series of his past encounters with “bad writers”.

While boldly listing these uncomfortable anecdotes, he stresses that “creative writing is subjective”. He points out that many bad writers have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to produce subjective writing. He argues that being subjective is not an excuse to produce bad writings and a reason to deny external inputs. He specifically criticizes the implicit selfish mindset of these bad writers that no reader has the rights to objectively raise concerns or express dissatisfaction with their work because their work is supposedly “subjective” and is therefore free from any subjective opinions of others. He illustrates how such belief leads to these bad writers taking his critiques personally and not professionally.

Michael, in an effort to help those who still want to become good writers, underscores the importance of education and practice supported by proper guidance. He also provides a list of what makes up a good piece of creative writing which includes “detail, originality, specificity, and a sense of character and place”. He also emphasizes the importance of “distinctive voice”, a skill which is apparently being employed in Bad Writer’s strong message itself. I interpret this list as a set of objective signs of what defines a good creative writing piece.

I believe that all means of creative expression come from a shared understanding that we are, in fact, subjective human beings with different backgrounds and opinions. Because we are not clichés of other people, we are all capable of expressing ourselves and communicate with various audiences from the world through creative expression of distinct forms, ranging from creative writing to computational art. Nonetheless, we shall all keep in mind that there exist objective standards and signs that can be applied to various creative means of expression, either to appreciate or critique them.

(A little side note - Bayesian Statistics and Inference, modern day basis of machine learning and AI techniques, starts from accepting the notion that ‘subjective prior knowledge’ contributes to posterior probability. Yet, the theory is built upon a set of objectively defined rules!)