Toxic writing advices - How we almost gave up writing

 

I reached the point where if I see one more writing advice I will stop writing anything. When I see writing advices, pet peeves, dos and don’ts, I can’t help but see them as a checklist. Did I do that? Did I do that right? What if we did that and it’s bad? Getting close to the release of our debut novel I can’t stop thinking about the things we did right and things we did wrong, although I know we can’t start rewriting the whole thing again. If we would start rewriting it then we need to go through the whole editing process again, send it to our editor again, and we won’t finish it in the next 1-2 years. And would the book become better? It would change of course, but I don’t think it would get better, only different. This is a very toxic mental state, that can lead to endless rewriting and editing, resulting in a WIP that will never be finished.

How did I end up here?

When we started to take writing more seriously I wanted to learn more about the craft itself. The main shortcoming was that I rarely read books in English. I try to do it more and more since, but I’m much slower reader in English than in Hungarian, and sometimes I just don’t have the extra energy. But the thing is, as our editor also pointed it out, that cultural expectations are very different. We don’t have things like strong and weak verbs, we need much more dialogue tags, and we consider adverbs desired to make the prose beautiful. So, obviously, I needed more information to learn the English/American way.

I started doing some research and I came across a huge amount of writing advices, what to do, what don’t, what agents or readers like or dislike, and sometimes these informations were contradictory. It was overwhelming, but I thought that if I can check everything on that imaginery list, then we will be better writers.

Eventually I realized, that not all advices are good, and just because everyone has an opinion they are not automatically entitled to give advices and tell other what to do. I know this is harsh. I know that everyone is valid, every opinion is valid but… really? 

Case number one: In this current publishing environment you have to build an author platform. I still don’t know if that will really lead to sales and get people to read your book, time will tell, but this is the first marketing advice everyone will come across. So when people are told to make an author platform, they will start thinking about what content they could possibly create, that will generate interest and interactions. They are writers so the obvious solution is giving writing advices. They are writing for years now, it doesn’t matter that they haven’t published anything, this is what they are good at – or at least they think they’re good at it – so they can do a favor for the community, and pass on the wisdom and knowledge they collected. The problem with this, that these are still just opinions about what works and what doesn’t, but they are presented as ultimate rules, even if there is a disclaimer in the beginning, that “Do what works for you.” No one will remember that, just the fact that in the eyes of someone they don’t even know, they did something wrong in their WIPs. It’s stressful, I stressed about this a lot. A LOT.

So all writing advice is bad?

Not at all. But I learned that I need to be selective. In my eyes the advice is valid from someone whose methods are tried and tested. If they sold a lot of copies of their books, then they did their marketing right, if the majority of the reviews are good, then they did something right in their books, and if I read that book and I loved it, then of course I want to learn how to write as good as the author. The opposite also applies, if we read the book and we hated it, we will stop accepting the advices from the author. Both of this happened.

The other thing I found out, that good advice is when they tell you how to do the thing you want to, not telling you what to do. The most positive experience in this journey happened few weeks ago. I was very sick, I couldn’t do anything except lie on the couch and listen to things on Youtube. Finally I had the time to watch Brandon Sanderson’s writing class. That is an actual lecture at a university, and I thought why not. I finished uni 3 years ago, attending a lecture might be good for nostalgy. So there was a man on my screen who sold millions of copies and everybody who loves fantasy like I do, adores his books. I read the first book of the Mistborn trilogy, I loved it, so it impied that he does something right. That this lecture is worth watching. What I loved after I watched the whole thing, that he never ever told his students what to do. Instead he showed methods, real tools, and how to achieve what you want, not what to achieve. You see the difference here? Good. The professional authors who sold millions of copies are not got there because they were lucky. Luck plays a big role in getting discovered, but you also need to know what you are doing. There are a lot of classes out there by famous authors, advices from them, so choose the one whose books you loved, who you look up to. Don’t let a random youtuber or blogger tell you what to do, especially if you didn’t even like their books… or they don’t even have one you can read.

This whole phenomenon only exists because authors and wannabe authors are pushed to become influencers. Let their books speaks for themselves instead of their platforms, and don’t let them take you down. No book is perfect, and there isn’t one book out there which everyone loved. My favorite books have tons of 1 star reviews, and my least favorites have 5 star reviews. Anything you write there will be readers out there who love it and hate it. Just write it, so time can tell, if you did it right.

 

Cheers,

Lory