I have an extremely hard time distinguishing good writing from bad writing. Despite the fact that I've read a LOT of books in my life, and even done quite a bit of writing myself, I genuinely never seem to know when writing is subpar. I watch movies and play games and tons of people say that the writing isn't good in them, and I thought it was totally fine. Like, it didn't occur to me to think that it was bad. I'm some kind of illiterate, I guess. Writing has to be absolutely ABYSMAL for me to notice that it's subpar. Like, "The Room" level of trash writing.
I mean, I can recognize especially good writing, as distinct from just "normal" writing. Planescape: Torment, Disco Elysium, these are games which clearly have superior writing. But the range of writing that just falls under "par for the course" for me seems to be very large. Much larger than most of the people I see reviewing and commenting on games and movies that I like. I never know if people are just too critical, or if I'm just a dullard with poor taste.
