How Do I Make My Writing Beautiful?

Spoiler alert: there’s no right answer.

When I start coaching a new client, I often read them the introduction from the book Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury (author of Fahrenheit 451). I usually get this reaction from my client: “Wow. That’s really well written.”

When I ask them why they think it’s well-written, I get an array of answers. The images he uses, the cadence in his sentences, the humor, the emotion, on and on. What resonates with different people is so relative that pinning down what makes a piece of writing 'good' can feel almost impossible.

But something in Bradbury’s words is speaking to a large audience. When I read writers like Gabriel García Márquez and Samantha Hunt, I am pained by how beautifully they can craft a sentence. But what strikes me in the writing is very rarely what strikes another person. So I asked myself, what makes a sentence beautiful to me?

This is actually the key. Through reading others, we identify the elements of craft that make a piece of writing beautiful for us, and then we can start to incorporate that bit of craft into our own writing.

There is no cosmic judge that says this is beautiful writing and this is not. It’s about taste. Understanding your taste and being able to produce it at will—that’s where craft comes in.

So here is my definition of beautiful writing. It doesn’t have to be yours. Take it and see what resonates. Look for beauty in writers you admire. Mimic it (read: steal) and watch your writing get more beautiful, too.

1. It Transports Me

Beautiful writing lifts me out of my chair and drops me somewhere else: In the hyper-dense energy prick at the moment of the Big Bang, in a swamp in the middle of Colombia, in the passenger seat of a rusted Rambler in downtown Chicago.

In this poem—my translation of Saint John of the Cross—I see the sunrise and feel its warmth on my skin:

Like the Sun
words do for a heart
what light does
for a field

2. It Connects

The writing I enjoy sets up a puzzle and completes it. It makes surprising connections—between ideas, images, or emotions—that snap into place with a sense of inevitability. A sentence can be beautiful when it makes me connect things I wouldn’t have connected on my own.

I love the beginning of this poem by Elisa Gabbert because it does just that:

To Philosophize is to Learn to Die
There was a metal band that was just called Death
I wonder if the wealthy dinosaurs were the last to die

3. It’s Lickerish

Some words just taste good in my mouth. They have weight, texture, and rhythm. I call them lickerish words—for me, they happen to dessert words like butterscotch, shortcake, peanut butter fudge.

They feel good to say, so they feel good to read. They become embodied. In my book, Rainbow Body, I wrote a poem using just these words. The poem quickly turned into one about indulgence, which led to a poem about American culture.

Warm butter buttercream
Peanutbutterfudge
Peach cobbler pumpkinpie
Bananapuddingcup

Salt sweat stickybun
Berry chocolatesauce
Nut pop cherrybomb
Poundcake hump lickoff

Thick fat plumpandpink
Bubblelollykitty
Spank hunk satiate
Honeybunny titty

4. It’s Elegant

To me, elegance is synonymous with precision. It’s the poetic flow that emerges when you strip away excess. The common advice to cut our writing down is often an overly-aggressive way to get at elegance. Don’t cut for efficiency; cut for beauty.

5. It’s Intimate

Beautiful sentences let me in. They make me feel close to something—an experience, a place, a person. Like this line from Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout:

Henry Kitteridge almost always rode with the window partly open because he loved the smell of the pines and the heavy salt air, and in the winter he loved the smell of the cold.

This is when I fell in love with the book. I’m there with Henry, the window down. I smell the pines, the salt, the cold. I can feel that he loves it, so I experience that love along with him. That’s intimacy—when a sentence makes me feel something as if it were my own.

6. It’s Honest

Beauty isn’t about perfection. It’s about truth. Beautiful sentences capture the world as it is—not as we wish it would be. They allow for contradiction, complication, and unfinished moments. They don’t tie things up in a bow; they leave space for nuance, for the feeling of being inside something that hasn’t resolved yet. Samantha Hunt is a master of this. Her writing is like a truth-punch in the gut (in a good way!)

Now, after pregnancy, I’ve lost the ability to see myself clearly. My feeling is that I probably look like a chubby Victorian maid: bad teeth, mouth agape, drooling ignorance and breast milk. This reason sends me onto the Internet for hours, researching various exercise regimens and diets hawked by self-tanned women with chemically bruised hair. In the middle of the night it’s easy to hate myself as much as the world hates me.

7. It Moves

Finally, beautiful writing creates suspense. It pulls me from one sentence to the next because I want to know what happens. Because something is changing. Because something has surprised me. Carmen Maria Machado comes to mind, describing her partner in an abusive relationship. It’s like a wedding march of doom.

How to read her coldness: She is preoccupied. She is unhappy. She unhappy with you.

Final Thought

The more we tune in to what we love in others’ writing, the more we shape our own voice—not by following rules, but by following resonance. Pay attention to what captivates you as a reader—that's where your own writing can shine.