How to Spot the Mediocre Writer
Due to the recent democratisation of media, and the development of very user-friendly tools, everyone can be a writer today: one can start a blog, self-publish a book, etc. In this article, I share some quick ways to spot the fake writer. Otherwise, to paraphrase Thoreau, you will endlessly be reading mediocre writers and never read those whose work is truly valuable.1
Without further ado, the fake writer:
Carefully chooses their profile picture
Shares personal things about their life which are unrelated to their work2
Substantially edits their published writings without clarifying what has been edited
Deletes their published writings as if they never existed
Plagiarises — or even outright steals — the work of other writers instead of quoting them and give credit to them
Deletes comments from other people or even entirely blocks other people
Abhors critical questions and comments about their work and only wants to be praised
Uses ChatGPT — especially without clarifying that they do
If a writer does some of those things — and, unfortunately, many “writers” do those things today; great writers have always been just a few anyway — then most likely their work is not worth reading. The best thing one could do when encountering their work is to simply say: “No thanks, I'll pass.”
“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” — Henry David Thoreau
Cat photos are a good example of this
I'm guilty of deleting a couple essays. I question at times if a piece of writing is useful or not and I've certainly been in moods while writing that didn't produce something that had much value.