If I could go back in time to my naive teenage self and give him one piece of advice about writing, it would be this: learn to accept constructive criticism.
Afraid to Delete
I wrote my first joke of a novel in the 7th grade. I was cutting my teeth on word processing. Hunting and pecking. Still trying to figure out where all the keys were located. Ignoring the advise of my middle school keyboarding teacher. I was deathly afraid of the delete key, because let’s face it, I was averaging two sentences a minute. Hitting delete felt like tearing down a wall I had just constructed. Better to build more crappy walls and hope in the end it resembled something respectable.
I approached my first novel blind. I had zero plan and embraced free writing. Whatever came to mind was where I was going to go. I also had no idea about the editing process. This was back in the day when ELA teachers required rough drafts to be hand written, and final drafts to be typed. If I jumped straight to the typed draft–it must be a final copy. Right? I’m pretty confident the extent of Book 1’s editing consisted of clicking the spell check button. Remember when that was a manual option, unlike the convenience of today’s instant auto-squiggle on any device we use? Needless to say, that first book was 150 pages of crap. Fortunately, only a few people had to suffer through it before it disappeared for the betterment of mankind.
Positive Learning Experience
My first novel taught me many lessons but only a few were worthwhile. Others set me back for years. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Rule 1: Don’t write about your friends.
This is still sound advice for fiction that many reputable authors can attest to. Young writers are always tempted to go down this path, because let’s face it, our friends/relatives are our world. Unless you are writing a biography or an autobiography that includes them, don’t. My alternate-universe of my closest friends was not received well. Even if I captured their personalities down to the mannerism, reading about yourself from another viewpoint is kind of like watching someone else’s recording of you. The video doesn’t lie, but it always feels like we sound/act/look different in reality. If you haven’t offended your friends with your description or dialog, then you erred by not including them enough or chose a path that they don’t approve of.
Negative Learning Experience
My best friend was one of the few people that read Book 1. He was complimentary. Why wouldn’t he be? I’d painted him in a relatively positive light where he got the girl of his dreams. But he finished my book in two days. What! It took me months of navigating the keyboard on a Gateway 2000, and he chewed through my labor over the weekend?! How?
Today if someone completed one of my novels in two days, I’d wear that as a badge of honor. I’d hooked my audience with a work they couldn’t put down. Nothing is more flattering. This book was not that book. It was total garbage. But I was determined to make my friends suffer through garbage for more than two damn days!
Page Count
My next book would be longer. It was at least 300 pages, only marginally improved from the first. I was still opposed to editing. My fingers might as well have been etching stone, because those words were there to stay. This was also around the time that I discovered Tom Clancy (both his video games and the books). Tom taught me two things: write the thickest book on the shelf and cram it full of details. He actually taught me a lot more about writing that was pertinent, but those were my first takeaways. This was when my writing started to balloon. I cranked out 500, 600, and 700 page monsters. Times New Roman. Font 12. Single spaced. Massive.
The worst thing about young writing producing stories that long, is you start to believe that quantity equals quality. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I had produced well over 2000 pages of text. I thought I had achieved something legendary. Yet at the same time, I was acutely selective about who read any of these stories. Art is, after all, dangerously personal. I wasn’t going to let just anyone read them. What if they made fun of me? They weren’t attacking my stories, they were attacking me. I’d settle for knowing I had achieved wonders–all within the safe privacy of my PC.
Unwilling to Take Advice
At some point it leaked to one of my uncles that I was writing fiction. I puffed up my chest and told him my current story was 500 pages and counting, prepared to receive his praise and adoration. Instead he said, “That’s too long. Trim it to 200-250 pages.”
I thought he was an idiot. There is no way I can condense my story to 200 measly pages! This book would become two or three stories, when it worked better as one. Besides, what did he know? He wasn’t a writer. He’d never trudged through the process. He was a spectator! And that was the mindset I applied to anyone willing to offer me advice. If you weren’t a writer, you were irrelevant. Period.
I made one exception for my ELA teachers. She also liked to read Tom Clancy, so I trusted she was down with the content. I feel awful about it in hindsight. The plot was okay, but the draft was riddled with errors and unrefined. I pray that she only skimmed the pages because otherwise I wasted her time. She put on her best poker face and said she enjoyed it, and encouraged me to keep writing.
My Uncle was Right
Years after my uncle’s advice, I realized he was on to something. My writing was improving. I started mapping out my stories ahead of time to make sure everything ended up where I wanted it. I had become one of the fastest typists in the school–no longer intimidated by the delete key. I even started editing.
By all measures, my stories were lightyears ahead of my first works. But they were over 500 pages long and even if I allowed someone the privilege of reading one, they never finished it. That’s when I realized I needed to strive for quality over quantity, even if it felt short.
I went through some of my bigger novels and cut them apart. Sometimes I deleted whole sections that weren’t important. Other times I added to condensed scenes because my half-book had room to spare. My stories became more succinct and to the point. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, my writing, and my stories improved. Today, I have abandoned page-count and have switched to the industry standard word count. I write science fiction with a decent amount of world building, so I try to live within 125,000-165,000 words. Each genre is different.
Critics in Your Corner
As I mentioned earlier, art is personal. I am still bad at receiving criticism, but I am now able to accept it so long as I know two things about the critic:
1. That they are an author with valuable experience who wants to help you
2. They are a reader with valuable insight who wants to help you.
In both scenarios, you the writer must believe that the person giving you advice is trying to help you become better. They are in your corner. Sometimes internet trolls will actually provide valuable feedback, but I’ve yet to find a way to accept advice from people that I believe have malicious intent. Find people you respect to read your work. Avoid haters.
Let it Marinade
If you tell me I’m doing something wrong, I am going to shut down, and construct defenses for all the ways your are wrong instead. That’s where it would have ended in my youth. Now I have a new approach. I listen to criticism and feedback. All of it. I keep my mouth shut, and I let the advice marinade. Usually overnight. I find that I am much more willing to accept feedback, once I have removed my emotions from the equation. And for me, I’m not able to turn-off those emotions in the moment. So I walk away, and think about everything I’ve heard. Chances are, 80% of it is good advice. My wife is not the most delicate at delivering feedback–but she’s almost always right, and I appreciate her. Tomorrow. Once I’ve settled down.
Just remember, it doesn’t matter if you think you are right, if it doesn’t make sense to the reader.
Conclusion
I recently read a few lines from a Stephen King post where he stated the only way to become better at writing was to write and to read. Do both as much as possible. We will teach ourselves more lasting lessons than any writers workshop or article. I agree, because I have yet to attend a writer’s workshop, but I am learning more about writing every day. I have also come to accept that everything I write is an unfinished product. It will never be done. I can only hope that the next will be better.
Unless you plan on keeping your stories hidden away on your hard drive, we need feedback. Learn from those who have been there. Put aside your ego and learn from those who enjoy reading and are experienced even if they aren’t writers. Don’t dismiss advice immediately, it might be exactly what you needed.
-Glenn Roush