by Dee Ann Loving-Tackitt
📖 Scripture
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”
—Psalm 19:14
Can good writing be taught? I believe it can, though not in a simple or mechanical way. A teacher can show students how sentences work, how ideas are shaped, and how language becomes clear and powerful. What cannot be handed over so easily is the inward spark behind the work. No one can give another person a true love of words, or the deep urge to say something that matters. That must grow from within.
Even so, writing is not beyond teaching. It can be guided, practiced, strengthened, and refined, even if part of it always remains mysterious. There is both gift and discipline in it—something formed through instruction and something awakened from within.
🌿 Reading Like a Writer
People who want to write often read differently from those who read only for pleasure. Of course, they still care about whether a book is meaningful, moving, or enjoyable, but they also notice something more. They pay attention to how the writing works. They listen for rhythm. They watch how scenes are built, how details are placed, and how a writer creates feeling without explaining too much.
Reading, for a writer, becomes both admiration and study. It is not only a matter of loving a book, but of wondering how such a book was made.
🌿 More Than Correctness
Good writing asks for more than correct grammar, although correctness still matters. Clear and careful language is a form of respect for the reader. When a writer is careless, the reader must work harder than necessary, and the thought itself can lose its strength.
At the same time, correctness alone does not create beauty. A sentence may be proper in every way and still feel flat. Good writing needs life as well as order. It needs grace, energy, and a voice that feels real.
🌿 The Tradition of Teaching Writing
For centuries, people have tried to teach others how to write well. Manuals, essays, and books on style exist because writers have always wanted to pass on what they have learned. That long tradition suggests that writing can, indeed, be taught—at least in meaningful ways.
We may not be able to teach genius, but we can teach attention, patience, form, and discipline. These are not small things. They are the very practices that help a writer grow.
🌿 Writing and the Word: The Moment It Was Written
I am reminded of the moment in Scripture when God chose not only to speak, but to write. On Mount Sinai, the Lord gave Moses the commandments, not merely as spoken instruction, but as words inscribed by His own hand on tablets of stone. There is something profoundly significant in that act. God, who could have left His truth in the air as sound, instead fixed it in written form—making His word visible, lasting, and able to be returned to again and again.
Writing, in this sense, becomes more than communication; it becomes preservation, clarity, and testimony. What was written could be read, remembered, taught, and carried forward from one generation to another. It did not depend on memory alone, but on faithful inscription.
🌿 A Tutor’s Calling: Guiding the Voice of Another
My own experience as a reader and my training as a host for the Online Writing Center have convinced me that style matters deeply and that writing can be taught in meaningful ways. In this work, I have the opportunity to encourage other writers, to help them listen more closely to their own sentences, and to show them that clearer, stronger writing often begins with attention.
I cannot give anyone a voice that is not theirs, but I can help them discover it with greater confidence. I have seen that when people feel supported, their writing becomes bolder and more alive. That matters deeply.
I have read Gone With the Wind eleven times, and I know I did not return to it so often by accident. What drew me back was not only the story, but the way Margaret Mitchell told it. Her writing is full, vivid, and alive. She creates a world so rich that it rises off the page. There is drama in her language, but also intimacy. She makes history feel personal and emotion feel expansive.
Because of this, I believe good writing can be taught—even if not every part of it can be explained. Teachers may not be able to create longing, imagination, or style from nothing, but they can help shape them. They can help a writer learn how to carry feeling into language.
In the end, perhaps that is what good writing is: not merely correctness, but a voice strong enough to live in the mind of another person.
🙏 Prayer
Lord, You are the Author of all truth, beauty, and meaning.
Teach us to steward our words with care, humility, and purpose.
Give us minds that think clearly, hearts that feel deeply,
and voices that reflect Your grace.
Help us, as writers and teachers,
to guide others with patience and encouragement,
never shaping their voice into our own,
but helping them discover the one You have given them.
May our words be honest, our style thoughtful,
and our work pleasing in Your sight.
And in all we write,
may Your truth be seen and Your love be heard.
Amen.
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