@natecull I think there’s /some/ bits of goodness.

Like I definitely think the composition teacher who told me to read my writing out loud and pay attention to how it flowed did me a hug favor. Before then I’d just write huge, page-long grammatically correct sentences jammed with parenthetical asides and independent clauses and…

But my favorite quote on composition comes from C. S. Lewis:

For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you’re taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.