Re: Worldcon Writing Debrief

zornhau@xxxxxxxxx <zornhau@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > I couldn't write like that. Just having someone *say* it gives me the
> > shudders.
> SNIP
> > (leading one to believe that there isn't that much sensible advice to be
> > handed around) and/or potentially dangerous stuff like the above.

> The business about the maps came an established 30-something pro writer
> with several recent books in print, so presumably wasn't dangerous or
> stupid advice from, e.g. a jaded old hack making his living from
> running creative writing seminars.

Just because someone is in their 30s and is successful doesn't mean that
their writing advice is not going to be dangerous.

In fact, it is the best-selling writers who speak with confidence and
eloquence on why this way to write is so wonderful that are the *most*
dangerous.

Once you start looking carefully its easy to discover that no matter
what one author says there are plenty of other successful authors who
will tell you precisely the opposite. But if you have confidence in the
author -- who you met in person, who is a pro, an award winner perhaps,
who has several recent books in print, who spoke so knowledgably and
eloquently, will you go *looking* for those other authors?

> However, there are lots of ways of writing. The validation is in the
> selling.

Selling something means that my way of writing works for *me*. It
doesn't mean that my way of writing will work for *you*.

If I phrase things as "I prefer not to pin things down to much. I find
that if I let people put a map in my first book, it screws me up right
royally when I discover that I can't have two cities fight in the third
book, because they are now documented as being 400 miles apart." That
is fine and helpful, and people who don't work from maps can realize
that letting someone else (like, say, an editor) force one on you might
be a bad idea, and they'll watch out for that.

But when it comes out as "Don't nail down elements in your setting you
haven't used yet," it's no longer a fine and helpful thing, because
instead of sharing how I write, I'm telling people how they should
write. Nobody can *know* how anyone else should write.

(I might have been inclined to think that you simplified the phraseology
and that the panelist's comments were more on the order of my first
example than what you related, except that I heard a panelist say the
exact same thing at Marcon earlier this year.)



> I presume from your confidence that you have many publications under
> your belt.

I have a couple pro sales.

> Since I have none, I will tug my forelock and crawl back
> under my stone.

If you are really willing to crawl away just because I am published and
you are not, then you are only illustrating what I was ranting about
above. Being published doesn't make *anyone* infallible. (Patricia
almost manages to be infallible, of course, but it's because she listens
hard, not because she has published 17 books.)

Fortunately, I happen to think you are merely being faux-humble in the
assumption that it will show me up as being a rabid and unreasonbly
arrogant person. Since I approve of that sort of verbal dueling, my
good opinion of you remains undamaged. Touche. Yes, I am being rabid
and arrogant.

That doesn't necessarily mean that I'm wrong.





--
Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby
L. Shelby, Writer http://homepage.mac.com/mbottorff/Writing/
http://homepage.mac.com/mbottorff/Writing/rasfcFAQ.html
Livejournal http://www.livejournal.com/users/lavenderbard/
.

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