When Something is Wrong, Don’t Just Do the Opposite
A lot of posts about “writing for yourself,”
out there today, usually when someone is dealing with a difficult decision:
Don’t play to the market, don’t listen to conventional advice, just “write for the
passion of it.”
And there’s sense to it. It’s easy to get hung
up in what other people think, which can make a writer ingenuine, frustrated,
bored, and limited. Not a lot of good writing comes from trying to write what
people will buy.
Yet, writing for strictly for yourself is
counterproductive too. For one thing, these statements about only writing for
you usually appear in the comment section of a How-To blog or as a response to
an author’s question about what direction they should take the work. When
someone asks how to market their book better, “You shouldn’t worry about that,”
isn’t a useful response. If someone decides to share their experiences, you can
voice your concerns about the ramifications of their actions, but trying to
shut it down because it’s not a specific goal of yours is self-absorbed. Worse
if you are lying to yourself about what your goals actually are, shutting down
instead of confronting how to better achieve them. Over-simplification of
solutions is the foundation of flawed advice. “Just do this,” “don’t do that,”
are easy to say, but not necessarily easy to implement in their actual intent.
“Just simplify everything,” I was told once.
Except that my distinguished voice is the one
natural quality I have; I’m the sort of writer that a teacher could pinpoint in
an anonymous evaluation just by the way I talk. And my main flaw of being
confusing? Doesn’t just have to do with big words, long sentences, or excess
words; it’s the world-building, the splurge of unexpected details, the disinterest
in helping the reader compartmentalize. It’s not the complexity of the sentence
(usually), but the number of simple details I unload.
Would people understand my drafts better if I
wrote like a Dick and Jane book? It would certainly help, but it wouldn’t
eradicate the problem, and I doubt that people would be too thrilled with it. I
certainly wouldn’t.
I write the way I enjoy to write, I write the
way I want to read, I write the way I want to be perceived, and I write the way
I think will garner the desired reaction.
If I had to write like Hemingway, strictly
limited to “a fifth-grade reading level,” I would lose a lot of interest in it.
It wouldn’t be as enjoyable. That’s one of the biggest reasons I do it—I like
it. If all the other writers wrote on a fifth-grade reading level, I’d enjoy
reading a lot less.
But the intent of the message, the idea that my
words were not being understood, that was a problem for me. She was right in
some ways, and by simplifying some of
my words and sentences, by focusing on clarity over effect, mostly by combining a great deal of varied advice
and using each piece only in moderation, I slowly pushed my manuscript into
being something I am genuinely proud of. I didn’t simplify everything, change
my voice, or sacrifice my goals, but I did simplify in places, and it did help.
Which is why I think I cringe when people discuss
“write for yourself,” like it’s the only way.
The same man who once wrote about how you
shouldn’t write for the money—then complained about asking for books for free, then offered up his skills as a
ghostwriter—recently responded in kind to a fellow author’s question.
She asked how readers felt about cliffhangers,
in which most people said the same; they didn’t like them, or they were okay
with them as long as the book satisfied them in some way rather than seeming like
one book chopped into parts or like the author didn’t care to end it/answer the
questions.
He, however, told her that he honestly believed
you should write for yourself and let the book be whatever it wanted to be,
ignoring what readers think.
Again, I understood where he was coming from,
but I considered this thought overly-simplified, and somewhat disrespectful.
For one thing, I have never had a book that was
limited like that, that it couldn’t be
tweaked to work in multiple ways. Most of my works, though written as
standalones, could be expanded into series if I wanted. Some, in the state they
are now, I wouldn’t recommend it, but if it was truly important to me—for
whatever reason—I could find a way to do it.
Creativity often comes best from problem
solving. Nothing forces you out of your comfort zone like trying to make
something work. This is why I don’t recommend cutting or tossing out as being
the first solution to a problem; my most inspired pieces were ones with serious
problems that I found a solution for. Their originality came from that, and
that uniqueness read as far more organic than anything I could sit down and try
to force to be different.
For instance, the manuscript I’m shopping
around (the one that has undergone over a dozen drafts) lacked a “pitch” in its
first incarnation. It was 180,000 words, about the size of two books really,
with a generic dystopian world behind a pretty good love story (if you asked me).
The pacing was slow in parts, I couldn’t tell anyone what it was about, and I
knew that the setting wasn’t anything different than what people had seen
before—and it was written before the
huge dystopian boom.
But you know what? I was happy with it. I mean,
I knew that it wasn’t up to snuff (I would have sent it out sooner if I had
thought so), but it was the first manuscript that came out how I wanted it to.
The characters, by the end, were exactly what I had imagined, their love and
personalities believable and endearing to me, the climax exciting and
satisfying. For the first time in thirteen novels, I knew if it was rejected, I
wouldn’t be embarrassed. I had some changes that I wanted to make, but I
genuinely liked it.
And I still like it. But I like this version
better.
I balked at developing the world more. I wanted
it to be just a background. I didn’t want to come up with some irrelevant plot
about how the world came to an end; it wasn’t about that. I never cared to read
it in any of the fantasy books I loved—the history was something I always
skimmed over. I just wanted to live in the world, I never needed to learn about
it.
I knew that size-wise the book was way too big
even before the first sixty thousand words were done. I had a great deal more
to say and not a lot of time to do it. It took me five months to complete which
for me, at the time, was longer than most. Usually I had finished a first draft
in about 40 days. So I decided to try and cut it even before it was done.
However, I told myself that if I felt the integrity of the work was coming into
question, I would stop. There were things I’d cut regardless, but had an agent had agreed to pick up my
book the length it was, I wouldn’t have bothered to challenge myself in sizing
it down.
I only
cut that much it because I knew it wouldn’t sell at that size.
The beginning of the manuscript was initially
fairly successful in dictating the type of world it was. People were still
confused about things, but the more drafts I went through, the worst (yet at
least narrowed down) their complaints on not understanding the world got. Even
though I liked what I had done, I wasn’t completely excited about it either,
and I could see when people told me it was slow that it, in fact, was slow.
“But don’t a lot of books start out slow?”
Yep. And sometimes you can get away with it.
But that’s kind of my point. A lot of times you will do something that is “good
enough,” that you can “get away with.” But then you miss out on how much better
it could be.
It was a struggle. Over the course of the
manuscript, I changed the beginning, trying to make it more exciting and more
clear while retaining my authenticity rather than cater to the whole, “readers
are morons, write like Hemingway” philosophy that was being pushed on me
constantly. I begrudgingly wrote out an entire history of the world, trying to
come up with something that was not just another apocalypse story, telling
myself I didn’t actually have to use it if I decided it hurt the work. I cut
out at least 70,000 words (probably more considering how many scenes I added.)
The manuscript is now an easy read for me.
While at first it was sometimes hard to get through, long and slow in places, I
can today sit down and devour it in a day. And I’ve read it a thousand times.
From these few changes of trying to add a hook, trim it down, and
world-build—the most basic of conventional writing advice—a clear plot and
pitch evolved.
I liked it on its first draft. I love it on its
tenth.
Now part of the reason why I love it is because
I didn’t worry too much about trends and taking every single piece of advice in
its entirety. If I had been focused on the market, I would have dropped this
book the second Divergent the movie
came out. I did, in fact, have some sort of existential crisis, but I chose to
do what felt right for me and give this manuscript a real chance. Even if it
doesn’t go anywhere, I learned a hell of a lot, more than any other piece I’ve
written.
So writing for the love of fiction, doing what
you want to do, and not catering to a market can be a thousand times more
fulfilling than changing your actions for a fickle business. But that doesn’t
mean “you shouldn’t care what other people think,” refuse to ask the tough
questions, and to consider possibilities.
If you haven’t started a story yet, it has the
potential to grow into anything. Sure, some ideas demand to be told in a
certain way, but I, at least, either can predict it and tailor it or can’t
predict it and won’t find out until I start writing.
Many times I read a short film, a novella, or a
short story and say, “You need to spend more time telling this.” My main
critique is ‘more.’ Better pacing, more details, more answers, show me who
these characters are to make me care, have an actual ending rather than just
stopping when you got bored, don’t summarize the events so much, let me watch
them unfold. I think, this would be better if you just took your time and
relished in these moments over speeding through it. And then I hear the author
say, “But I have the right to write a novella!”
It’s not about that. Sure, novellas get an
unfair amount of negativity; I myself tend to pass them up for sheer reasons of
commitment. (I don’t like getting into something just to have it end.) But no
matter the size of your book, even if it fits right into the zone of average
book length, you should always question if it could be better. If people are
telling you how they feel, even if you think it’s superficial, don’t brush it
off.
I don’t understand why a book could only be a serial filled with
cliffhangers in order to be the book the author wanted. Not before it is
written anyway. In this case specifically, I don’t see how the benefit to the
author is so great. If the consequences to the readers outweigh the benefits to
the writer, it seems to me that ignoring it just because you have the right to
do something that way is self-sabotaging.
I joke that I don’t write for myself because a
lot of it would be me writing, “This is boring. Let’s jump to the good part.”
Instead, I feel out the pacing, write the scenes that I know need to be written
to make the best experience possible—even if it’s painful for me to do so—and
then work it until I know that I have crafted the intended effect. Sometimes
the most fun way to write is not the most fun to read (not often I’d speculate,
but it does happen.) Sometimes the hardest thing to write is what put your book
over the edge. And sometimes its shit. Unfortunately, you won’t know until you
at least try.
Never put your book out there to be read if you
don’t care what others think. Why would you? And if you do just want to share
the world with them, you should still care about their experience at least a
little. It’s kind of like asking someone out to dinner and then demanding they
go to a restaurant you know they hate just because you love it. It’s very
likely that you can find a place you both enjoy.
Mainly, reconsider your priorities. In the case
of the question, “How do you feel about cliffhangers?” you should care about
others’ opinions while you’re writing. If you find you love them while other people just tolerate them, maybe that’s a
sign you should do it. But if you
find that you’re just okay with them, that your writing is “good enough” with
them, then is it really worth the battle, fighting for your right to cliffhang?
You might find that you’re just avoiding finding an actual solid ending (which
is the number one reason I don’t like cliffhangers; you read the entire series,
each unsolved, to get to the final and realize the author just couldn’t write
endings period.)
You also might find the opposite. People don’t
like change and a lot of personal tastes in writing are acquired. You decide to
do something that isn’t in vogue right now and your readers will come around,
they’ll start to love it, you’ll cause a new trend. Many of our greatest
writers wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if they had listened too heavily to the
critics.
You just have to find the right balance.
Think critically. Say what you want to say in a
way that makes people want to listen. Pick your battles, reassess your
priorities. Do what you want to do, but remember you might not know all of the
options. Most importantly, tell people the answer isn’t black and white; just
because one thing is wrong doesn’t make the opposite right.
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