Stringsinger, "Creativity in writing is a form of communication."yes I agree. I think I was interpreting 'communication' to be more surface-level and obvious. Amos, sometimes I just talk out of my ass, but I think what I meant was what I said in a vague sort of way.

On communication being not the most important thing: sometimes creative writing asks questions and makes you think, sometimes it leaves things unsaid so you can fill in the blanks. Get a group of people to agree on what certain lines by ee cummings or Bob Dylan mean, and you'll understand what I mean. If you want to call the empty space that calls you fill it up with your imagination 'communication', I can understand. Questions are communication of a sort and I don't want to quibble, just explain why I said what I said.

There's also the unimportant communication that involves a writer wanting to tell me something and being completely competent, but I don't want to read it. From the reader's point of view, it may be good writing, but it doesn't matter. From a writer or an editor's point of view, is it good writing if most people don't want to read it? The writer's communicating his little butt off, but that doesn't matter. There is something needed beyond communication.

Riginslinger, I was trying to avoid listing favorite authors/good writers because the thread's about what makes good writing. Most writers are consistently competent, thanks to their proofreaders. 'Good' is a step above 'competent' and I'm pretty sure we can find passages in every author's work that we find lacking. I think we've had author fan lists before. (I don't know the thread titles off the top of my head though.) The question isn't 'who', it's 'why'? What is it about the author's writing that makes it good?

I think when we get rid of all the opinions about good writing we don't agree with, we may be left with this: good writing is that which readers want to read. Then again, someone will feel that some other aspect is more important, so Cruz probably has it write: there are no absolutes in the Universe. (Almost always never.)