Three ways to study, three ways to learn, three goals, three endings – all of them different.
Let’s say you want to be a writer. To be a writer means, to be someone who writes. This is the basic level: the only requirement is to write.
Now, let’s say you want to be a published writer. To be a published writer means, to be someone who writes, whose writing is accepted for publication by an editor, and his writing is then subsequently actually published and made available for sale to the public.
Now, let’s say you want to be a famous writer. To be a famous writer means, to be a published writer whose works sell in vast quantities and are, therefore, well-beloved by the reading public.
Now, let’s say you want to be an acclaimed writer. To be an acclaimed writer means, to be a published writer whose works are admired by a critical and scholarly (if not academic) elite.
The difference between being a published writer and a famous writer in this context, is only one of degree: the works of the famous writer sell more copies than the works of his not-so-famous colleagues. Therefore, for the purpose of this blog post, we can lump together the published writer and the famous writer.
This leaves us with three kinds of writer:
- The writer (with no further clarifications)
- The published/famous writer
- The acclaimed writer
If you just want to be a writer (with no further clarifications) then all you need to do is write. You don’t need anyone else’s approval. You don’t need to study with any teacher of writing. You don’t need to publish what you write. You don’t need to satisfy any requirements of any editor, publisher, literary critic, or reader.
Just write.
I believe that most writers begin their apprenticeship or their practice of being a writer in this way. We tell ourselves stories. We write down our stories. And in doing so, we seek to satisfy no one but ourselves – at least at first.
Many writers will not end up being completely satisfied with this state of affairs. In the end, they will want their stories to be read by others – and they will want their readers to enjoy reading these stories. This usually means publication, with the ultimate goal of being rich and famous as a writer. Perhaps I ought to say ‘rich or famous’ – some would-be writers dream more of fame while others dream more of riches.
Either way, in order to be a rich writer or a famous/acclaimed writer, the writer needs first to be published.
Now everything changes for him. Now, truly, he will need to study other writers, he will need to police editors, he will need to satisfy the requirements of literary critics, and he will need to appeal to readers in general. In order for this to happen, he will first need to be published – and this means writing a work that some editor finds worthy of publication.
Two avenues diverge here: the first leads to acclamation, and the second leads to money. The difference lies in the whole approach of writing.
In today’s market I would say – at least from my small experience of it – that the kind of writing that wins critical acclaim is not, strictly speaking, talesmanship. I mean by that that the story is not what’s important, but rather it’s word selection and felicity and ingenuity of phrase. The line is what counts, not the work as a whole. At best, to work as a whole is examined as an exercise in style or as a psychological profile of a character or as a mood piece.
The best teachers that I have found for teaching writers how to write to be published, and therefore to be published writers (not acclaimed writers, mind you, but ‘professional, journeyman’ writers), are literary agents. The how-to books on writing that have been put out by literary agents manifest an awareness of the art of writing, the craft of writing, and also the desires of the literary marketplace and his editors and publishers understand them. These books by literary agents strike an excellent balance between the needs of the writer and the demands of the publisher. The balance is a fitting one, since the agent’s role is to go between writers and publishers.
Most writing courses in academic institutions will teach you (or will attempt to teach you) how to write for critics, with the goal of being an acclaimed writer. Therefore, if your goal is to be a published writer and perhaps even a famous writer, I advise you to avoid all such courses of study. Instead, choose any literary genre that you enjoy reading yourself, and study intensively all the examples of the genre you can find – with emphasis on the best-selling ones. If possible, take a work that has sold well and that you particularly like, and copy it out by hand word for word – from beginning to end. Do this for at least a half dozen works, preferably by at least three different authors.
After this, what you must do is write, review what you have written with a critical eye – an eye towards what seems to be the preference of publishers – finish what you have written to the best of your present ability, and submit it. Reading trade publications such as Writer’s Digest will also help, although all the most important thing is this cycle: write, finish, submit – and repeat, over and over and over.
An entirely different path opens before you when you seek to be a writer, and not necessarily a published writer. Today, you can self publish to your heart’s content and distribute your work over the Internet free of charge.
This path requires no study from anyone at all. All you need to do is write and to satisfy yourself. This path will lead you down a road of your own idiosyncratic preferences and aesthetic tastes. The work that you will do may not fit anyone else’s idea of quality. It may not fit anyone else’s idea of a story. It may not fit anyone else’s idea of literature. It may, in fact, he looked upon as incomprehensible gibberish. Or, it might be hailed as genius. It might be deemed publishable. You might get offers to publish it by reputable houses (such things, though extremely rare, have happened) and you might even become rich and/or famous.
(I must stress, however, that this solo path is not to be undertaken with any sort of goal, dream, expectation, or even hope of being acclaimed, famous, or published in any traditional venue. Anyone with any serious or even slight intention of achieving those goals really ought to study one path or the other.)
These thoughts occurred to me and talking to an old friend who is looking to move from journalism and screenplay-writing into fiction. I was trying, ill-equipped as I am, to give him some advice as to what editors and publishers seem to like in today’s writing styles. And it occurred to me that his short stories, which seem both cathartic and self-revelatory, even autobiographical, might well be hurt and damaged if he distracts himself away from touching the raw nerves, real emotions, and poignant memories that are his subject matter, with any kind of consideration for literary critics and/or publishers put on their lists of what is required, preferred, and acceptable in writing today. Maybe, it occurred to me, my friend ought to seek the solo path and right for the sake of expression and healing rather than being acclaimed, rich, or famous.
(Composed by dictation Friday 19 September 2008)
