What Separates a Good Writer from a Great One?

We all have different ideas about what qualifies someone as a good writer, from storytelling ability to clarity of thought. But great? Well, what similarity do "the greats" of diverse areas have? I'll name just a few.

• In sports: Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Babe Ruth

• In acting: Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sidney Poitier

• In singing: Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson

• In painting: Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O'Keefe

• In leadership: Martin Luther King Jr, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi

Among all the other talented, intelligent, mesmerizing, and extraordinary practitioners there are and have ever been in each category, what defines the few people as truly great is a quality that's often hard to pinpoint. "You know it when you see it."

F. Murray Abraham's portrayal of Solieri to Tom Hulce's Mozart in the 1984 movie Amadeus is a good example. Solieri the character is himself a prolific and accomplished composer. Let's say, he's a good composer. But Mozart? A genius. Exceptionally gifted. There is no list of the most superlative composers in history on which his name does not appear. It seems far too little to say, a great composer.

When I read a writer whose words fill me with awe in the truest sense of the word, a writer whose language is exquisite yet simple, perfect, a writer whose writing I both aspire to and understand I'll never equal, I know I'm in the presence of greatness. Like student artists with their sketchpads or easels on the floor before a museum master work, I study how they do what they do.

But even then, it's not just a nuts and bolts step by step. Greatness is ineffable. It doesn't always have a how.

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