How to Share Your Opinions When You’ve Just Started Writing
Writing, especially
discussing writing, is a hell of a lot more fun when you’re confident about it.
That uncertainty and insecurity makes for painful criticism and less inspired
writing sessions, while trusting yourself convinces you to take a whole slew of
risks with larger payouts.
But how do you
become more confident?
I often start
critiques with the question, “What are your strengths and what are your
concerns?” This is mostly to get the issue from the horse’s mouth; I find that
helping someone fix a problem he himself believes exists is much easier than if
I have to prove it’s an issue first. What I’ve also noticed, however, is
that many people can accurately cue in on their flaws, but are at a loss when
it comes to their strengths. We know how we’ve failed a lot better than how we
succeeded, and that’s part of the problem. I also ask the question in order to
get a quick sense of them and know what they care about (and therefore how to
talk to them).
So to start with,
if you don’t feel confident, maybe sit down and really identify for yourself
why you’re not a colossal fuck up. Might be a good foundation. Do so
accurately, as if you’re writing a formal book report defending an author from
your judgmental asshole teacher.
But the reason I
write this is not because of people who are too humble and self-deprecating (at
least overtly). I write this after getting another smirk from a highly inexperienced
writer who had never seen incredibly conventional formatting before.
They say that it
takes a little bit of skill to evaluate yourself and that those who are lacking
tend to vastly overestimate their abilities. This is frustrating, not because
they don’t have self-awareness, but because many times those who don’t know the
first thing about what they’re doing tend to be the bossiest, most judgmental,
and rudest people you’ll meet. They’re the ones who will literally laugh
in your face without considering even briefly that the reason they haven’t seen
it before is because they haven’t been paying attention to those things for
longer than a month now.
On the opposite end
of the spectrum, you have those who are afraid of being that person. Instead of smirking and pronouncing their
opinion as fact, they constrict into themselves and refuse to speak.
Being a writer is
just as much about showmanship and reputation as it is about the actual
writing. People love writers, the authority and attitude they bring into the
world, so in order to make people fascinated with your books, you need to be
expressing genuine aspects of yourself, taking charge of a creative scene, and
not behaving like you're less than everyone else. For your own benefit as well as
your readers, be strong in who you are.
The question
becomes, though, how do you know the difference? How do you know when
expressing your opinion you are just valuing your own input versus exposing
your naivety?
First, keep in mind
that attitude is more important than content. If you are friendly, listen
before you speak, and laugh a lot, if or when you say something incredibly
stupid, you’re more likely to shrug it off. People are also more likely to
inform you about something you didn’t know because they don’t feel like you’re
going to bite their head off. You’ll notice my biggest complaint about the big
egomaniacs above—it’s their contempt.
My friend is in the
bad habit of making pronouncements of how “movies are.” When confronted with a
script she doesn’t like, she lambasts it for not doing what she expected it to.
“Dialogue is supposed to…” “Movies are supposed to…” She has a very limited
view of not only how it must be done, but the purpose of media.
What’s irritating is that any real life example proving other much, much more
successful people don’t subscribe to her philosophy, she’ll insist that “They’re
wrong!” I couldn’t argue with her the benefit of diversity and the fact that
her scripts could be improved if she opened up her palate more (“Well, people
who read scripts like mine.”) Worst, when she describes to me what "good" writing is, I often sit there and think, "Well, that sounds awful." It's not just that she doesn't feel writing can be creative or diverse, but that she actively believe it's supposed to be dry as hell. "Nobody actually likes reading."
People have
different tastes and interests, and the biggest problem is when someone doesn’t
realize that they don’t speak for the universe. It’s not that books and films can suit different needs, it’s that they
should. The philosophy that bad books shouldn’t exist (like the people who
lament the creation of Fifty Shades of Grey),
ignore the very real reality that if a few souls got to choose which novels
could be written, reading would become an awful experience for many readers. Books would be stagnant and homogenized. It’s a good thing when someone does something
against your expectations.
The issue isn’t
that we have different tastes, or that she’s expressing her different tastes,
it’s that she’s leaving no room for anyone else’s. She’s shaming these writers
for not subscribing to her ideology, and in the process, my friend makes herself seem
more uninformed to me than if she chose an alternative way to talk about them.
She devotes herself to bias confirmation—any famous script that doesn’t do what
she’s talking about doesn’t count. This brings up questions for me about her
experience that I wouldn’t have asked before. Where is she getting these ideas
from? Her Those-Who-Can’t-Teach professors at a community college? Had she
expressed her ideas with context and cause and effect, her background wouldn’t
have matter as much because her thought process would have been solid and
relatable.
So, the obvious
conclusion is don’t smirk at people. Don’t talk down to people. Expect people
to have different ideas and tastes. Don’t expect people to automatically agree
with whatever “Ultimate Truth” you believe in. Be prepared to calmly and
jovially explain your thinking, and truly listen when other people offer up
other points of view.
Most importantly
though, and where I was getting at with all of this, is that one flaw people
have, one flaw everyone has, is we all possess intellectual “blind spots.”
These blind spots can be obvious—A man who doesn’t read much cannot say how
original his work is—or they can be more complex—A woman who doesn’t see
herself as the protagonist while reading won’t know how to write for people who do.
In many cases though, you have a few blind spots that you already know about. In the case that you
feel like you’re not as experienced as you’d like, you can always ask yourself
how long have you been doing this for in comparison to the person talking. This
is not just to help you know when you double check your thinking, but also can
bring you to realize that they might
not be fully informed what they’re talking about; they might have even less experience
than you. It’s pretty easy to think that you’re a new writer even after five
years in, so that self-reflection can be a nice wake-up call.
You have something
of value to say. Even if you’ve only picked up a pen two weeks ago, your ideas,
philosophies, and perspective can be useful to those around you. Don’t be shy
in saying what you’re thinking. Just remember that everyone else has something
valuable to say in some form or another, that you aren’t omniscient, and that
even if you’re an expert in making the books the way you want them to be, it
doesn’t mean yours is the only way, or that it works for everyone.
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