Photo by Anton Darius.
In the months since starting “Notes from an Editor,” I have often been struck by the irony of my having a blog on writing tips for the simple reason that I tend to distrust broadly applied advice.
When editing, my comments are always limited to the particular text I’m reading and particular writer I’m working with. The same, of course, is not possible on a blog. Even so, I always try to ground any advice that appears here in the experience it comes out of, and I try to keep it either as limited and specific or as flexible and nuanced as possible. Not everyone shares this philosophy.
Even though we start learning to write as children, learning how to be a writer and break into the publishing industry is a very different beast. Publishing is a field with many sort-of-standardized expectations, but those standards are rarely clearly communicated, change frequently, and can vary from person to person, agency to agency, or publisher to publisher. As a result, industry standards are often mysterious to those outside the industry—and so many writers do start as outsiders to the industry. Combine this situation with pressure on writers and other publishing professionals to build a brand or expand their reach, and it should come as no surprise that the business of giving writing advice has become a widespread and widely varied cottage industry.
Writers are therefore often confronted with stern instructions on how to write, how to be a writer, or how to change their manuscripts by people who don’t know them and have never read their work. Sometimes this advice is useful, sometimes it’s harmful, and sometimes it’s just confusing. Figuring out which of these categories a particular piece of advice falls into is yet another challenge of being a writer.
For instance, I was once at a conference where two agents—both well-intentioned, intelligent, and respected professionals—gave me completely contrasting advice on how long my 93,000 word manuscript should be. The first told me I needed to lengthen it by 30,000 words; the second said I should cut it by 3,000. Neither person had read the book. Instead, they based their advice on its genre, my brief description of the plot, what they believed would currently sell, and, presumably, issues they had seen in other aspiring writers’ work.
After the conference, I went back to my manuscript with their advice in mind. I cut and added and ended up with pretty much the same word count I started with.
Now, had one of them been my agent or editor and given her advice after reading the ms, I would have taken her words far more seriously and endeavored to make the changes she asked for (even though I truly don’t see how this particular book could possibly handle another 30,000 words). As it was, the advice was mostly telling about the people giving it. Not that I doubted either agent’s professionalism or sincerity, but their approach suggested their focus was on shaping books according to external, abstract market whims far more than internal, concrete story factors.
Of course, part of the reason writers work with agents is to have someone on their team who knows the market and can guide their manuscripts to their most salable forms. But if I’m going to put my work in the hands of someone else, I want to know that person won’t try to force my book into an ill-fitting shape.
Aside from some temporary anxiety, getting contrasting advice didn’t really do me any harm in this case. And, ultimately, it was a useful experience. For while I still don’t believe in dismissing advice out-of-hand, it reminded me that I should probably also never take it as gospel, no matter how good the source.
But there are plenty of instances when the wrong advice—even good advice given to the wrong person or to the right person at the wrong time—can be damaging. It can cause the recipients unnecessary doubt, push them in the wrong direction, slow their progress, waste their time, or even cause them to quit writing altogether. And advice given without context, without sufficient knowledge of its targets, will be bad advice for someone. Possibly many someones.
I went into the situation described above with years of experience in writing and editing, and although I always feel like I’m learning, I’m also fairly confident in my skills. Many aspiring writers are far more vulnerable.
So, what’s the solution? Honestly, there isn’t a single solution; that’s kind of the point. I would love to tell you to consider all advice and just take what makes sense to you. However, I know there are plenty of people out there who would use that as an excuse to dismiss advice they don’t like but should take. There are also people for whom this approach would just be overwhelming.
With that in mind, I think the best general counsel I can give is to encourage anyone reading this to endeavor to be as clear-eyed about both your writing and yourself as possible. To forgive yourself for the wrong turns you’ll inevitably take. And, above all, do whatever it is you need to do to just keep going.
Or, you know, maybe not.