Writers: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Fellow writers are some of our worst enemies.

I remember way back when I decided I was going to stop writing Watership Down fanfiction, over 13 years ago. I wrote a 150,000 monstrosity that I later had the misfortune pleasure of turning into Jaeth’s Eye. I had not written original fiction for years leading up to that day and felt like I needed some guidance. So I joined a writer’s group and posted an excerpt.

I don’t know why I expected to receive constructive comments. I guess I was naive, and felt that since all these people are writers, too, that I automatically belonged. Instead, I was told that my writing was not descriptive enough. Apparently, my style is too simple, as I choose not to bore my readers (or, more importantly, myself) with minuscule details about…oh, I don’t know, the shape and slant of my character’s eyes as they randomly look into a mirror.

Later, to rub salt into the wound, that person commented on another writer’s entry–one which was chock-full of description–and said, “This is how it should be done!” I may have responded with a statement about different voices and styles; the person then made an analogy about learning music, where you learned by repetition before trying to do things your way. Her whole tone was condescending, a hint of how dare you question me woven into the message.

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I knew the basics, by that point: show, don’t tell, avoid adverbs, etc. And I think I knew how to respond to criticism graciously. But it felt like I was being attacked, just for being myself.

Thankfully, that story has a happy twist. I stumbled onto a different and much smaller forum, where I befriended the founder and we went on to take over the world…

…well, maybe not quite like that. But we did go on a crusade against bad writing and developed lasting friendships with other young writers. Our nights were filled with chats discussing worldbuilding, characters, prose, narratives, point of views, current events, rabid Leprechauns, and smut. And along the way, I had this nagging thought: outside of this community, why is it so difficult to talk about writing?

If, as the saying goes, nurses eat their young, then writers, I think, regurgitate them back out before stomping all over them. What is it about other writers that makes writers defensive and critical? At any given time, in any writing forum, you’ll see semi-amateur writers pounce on clueless beginners, bombarding them with facts before they even have a chance to breathe. I remember one forum where a newcomer asked a seemingly innocent question and was accused of being too lazy to do her own research.

I would like to refer back to that ego I mentioned a few blog posts ago. Writers have big egos that are also really easy to deflate. And it probably stems from how we all started out: most of us were those kids who loved to read, aced English class, and were told, over and over again, that we should really become writers.

We took this to heart. This became ingrained into us, became who we were: that kid who was good at writing. We built our self-esteem around this. I mean, weren’t we good, compared to our classmates who found reading boring? Some of us felt like prodigies. And then we go out into the world, ready to take over, and it turns out that there’s like a few million others like us. The same dreams, the same hopes…the same story.

Other writers, I think, make us feel defensive because they remind us that we’re not special. All those things that made you think you were going to land a multi-million dollar book deal out of the gate, well, it turns out that others have them too. Most of the people who encouraged us while growing up didn’t know the sort of world they were thrusting us into.

When we assume the guise of the angry critic, we are actually reassuring ourselves. If I say it like this, we think, if I insist it is true, then it must be true. We protect ourselves by pretending that the other person got it wrong.

Writing is  very often a sad, lonely road. One does not need to go very far to hear stories of writers who go over the edge. It’s no wonder that, as a general rule, writers are more prone to depression and self-harm compared to the rest of the world.

There is nothing wrong with constructive criticism. There are legitimate cases where a writer overreacts to them. And there’s no point living in a world where we are not allowed to discuss different methods of achieving certain results.

Constructive criticism can and should be used to help writers, particularly emerging writers, to achieve their best potential. But there are ways to do it without beating people over the heads with it. Other writers are not your competition. Unlike marriage, readers are not till death do us part. They can have two, four, or twenty favourite books. There are plenty of bookworms who would have freaking book orgies if given half the chance.

I also think that we writers should be more aware of our innate, guttural reaction to another’s work. In particular, we should keep a close eye on instances where we start to compare our work to someone else’s. As the saying goes, we will always find someone both better and worse than us. Bad writers should not be used to make you feel good; better writers should not be a reason for you to stop writing.

More importantly, I think, we need to cultivate a feeling of support within this community. I have never been more happier than when I started to celebrate my fellow writers’, and friends’, achievements. Leave behind the Best in English award in the classroom. If the world of writers is crazy, well then, there’s plenty enough crazy to go around.

Do your thoughts keep you awake at night? Would you rather be listening to a make-believe character’s angst instead of your own? Would you rather think, sure life sucks, but at least I’m not being chased around by a one-eyed, tentacled monster made out of babies. Go ahead and give The Agartes Epilogues a try. It’s like a soap opera with dragons!