Stop Giving Bad Writing Advice
One of the regrettable side effects of a world in which anyone can publish any garbage straight to Amazon is the proliferation of “indie” authors. Now, mind you, I have nothing against independent authors as such. I am and have been one of them. Then again, I have nothing against “martial artists” as such. The problem is that in a completely unregulated market, you’re going to find a lot of people who walk and talk like they’re tenth-dan masters who have no earthly clue what they’re doing. Does that last sentence refer to martial artists or indie authors?
Yes.
The driving compulsion behind most independent authors — well, behind any author — is the desire to be published. Sure, we’d like to make money at it. Every one of us dreams about making a comfortable living just sitting in a Starbucks plunking away at yet another masterpiece. We daydream about the halcyon days of bookstores; we want lines of people waiting at midnight for our next release in our bazillion-selling series. Essentially, we all want to be Stephen King or, even better, J.K. Rowling, whom I’m fairly certain could sleep in a bathtub of Krugerrands if she wanted to. It’s not about the money for most independent authors; it’s about the prestige of being able to say, “I am a published author.”
Invariably, authors start writing about writing. I resisted doing so for years. I’m firmly convinced that all authors spend entirely too much time talking about writing, writing about writing, and thinking about writing. The existence of the hashtag #amwriting bugs me to no end — because if you’re tweeting about what you “amwriting,” you sure as hell aren’t actually getting work done. I know I’ve been productive when I look up at the clock and discover a couple of hours have gone by, unnoticed, while my phone has registered several missed phone calls and text messages. If I have time to post on social media, I’m not actually getting any work done.
George R.R. Martin drives me crazy for this reason. He’s a massively successful author, but he’s said in interviews that he only works when he’s home for an extended period of time and can focus on his ancient word processor. He doesn’t work when he’s traveling. He doesn’t work when he’s going to be interrupted. Essentially, he only writes during the Winter Solstice when the moon is full and Jupiter is ascending, or some such nonsense. He’s lucky his series and the television show it spawned have made him so financially comfortable, because a working writer couldn’t afford to turn out content at that glacial pace. He’d starve first.
Tugboat Captain’s hats aside, Martin is a great writer whose success is unquestionable. He could blog about writing (if he was working on something that didn’t predate the Rubik’s Cube, I mean) and his opinion would have credibility. But we’ve reached the point where any Indie author who can construct a competent sentence figures he or she should be giving you writing advice, appearing at conventions, chairing discussions about writing, and generally playing the role of expert. I have to tell you, most — not all, but most — of the independent authors I read simply aren’t that good at writing. If they were better, they probably wouldn’t be independent authors in the first place; they’d likely have found publishing houses that would have them.
I’m very aware that are exceptions, and please don’t think I’m excepting myself. I published my worn science fiction and fantasy works back in the wild-and-crazy print-on-demand days, when you paid a company a hosting fee so they could run off copies of your overpriced trade paperback when somebody placed an order. My first books were terrible. I was very proud of them, but they were and are, well, garbage. At that stage in my career, I did not have the skill to recognize them for what they were.
There are a lot of people working to that level who are even now giving their fellow terrible independent authors advice on how to be slightly less terrible. Whether that circle of blind men is going to produce anything worthwhile is anybody’s guess. Once in a while it does, and that author will break out with a decent small-press publisher (Permuted Press comes to mind). Most of the time, though, these amateur authors crank out reams of chaff that goes straight to Amazon’s Kindle Select and stays there.
Once in a while, an indie author makes it big and gives hope to the legions of others out there. That’s a good thing, and that success means I want to hear from that guy. I’m willing to bet there are things I can learn from him. But if your only claim to fame is that you wrote a book that nobody else wanted and you gamed the Kindle promotions system to make that book a bestseller, your advice on writing is speculative at best. You’re probably not in a position to give advice if you’re still supporting yourself with a “real” job, at least not if a cursory glance through your Kindle “look inside” content reveals that you don’t actually write very well. Good writing isn’t just avoiding mistakes or knowing the rules of grammar. Good writing has to be better than trite. It has to stretch beyond derivative. It has to be more compelling than “good enough.”
If you can’t do that, sit down and shut up. Spend some time listening. Spend some time learning. And above all, spend more time writing. Stop trying to be the teacher when you’ve yet to surpass the students.
