Getting better? How do you know?

Writers have, in perpetuity, been waxing philosophically on their writing. It's been discussed here ad infinitum too. Stephen King has a whole memoir titled On Writing, that speaks to this subject. Can a bad writer become competent? Can a competent writer become good, and can a good one become great? What are the markers of these gradations on writing? Sure, one can improve, but the very nature of the evaluation is subjective anyway, right?

Mary Love said:

Still thinking about how much I relate to this. As far as the OP's question, I super relate to it on editing. I just ... *sigh* ...have no idea.

When I try to apply any big edits, all I see are more of my same habitual, general mistakes (that have been pointed out to me) happening all over again and the most frustrating thing is: I can't tell if it the piece is any better when I'm done. So, I'm told my character is unsympathetic, my foreshadowing is confusing, too much telling, etc. and then I'll have a more specific: what the heck is going on in that scene? So, I'll try to rewrite that scene and all I see is how unsympathetic my character is, how confusing, how telly, etc. and I feel like OMG this is NO better. My biggest fear is that my 2nd and 3rd drafts are going to make my story worse and worse as I start overthinking everything.

Looking back on old writing, I easily see that I've gotten better overall, but when it comes to editing, I can't ever seem to see any improvement. Maybe because it's too immediate and I need more distance? Maybe I'm not seeing what the bigger issue is? Maybe I'm incapable of seeing the story through the words? I just can't judge my editing.

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I think most writers do tend to make habitual mistakes or have certain weaknesses (even published writers) and a lot of times your strengths and weaknesses will be tied together. I've only seen a small sample of your work in SYW from maybe half a year ago, Mary Love, and I thought it was good, so maybe you're just being hard on yourself (which a lot of us are).

If you need to break from certain things, like unsympathetic characters, maybe try something radically different, such as writing a completely different character than you usually would. I'm finding the more I try things outside of what I'd usually do (often based on recommendations from others), the more improvement I see.

I relate to not being able to judge your editing and immediate improvement in writing. Sometimes I can see improvement pretty clearly (or I'm pretty sure it's not there), but sometimes I have no idea and I'm not going to be surprised with any range of response from "impressive" to "it sucked, it's a scrap and redo." It's really hard to judge your own work. So I really encourage the OP (and others) to share. And it will take you a lot further.

If you're not seeing the progression in responses, maybe in addition to switching things up, you could dig deeper - see if you can get more feedback on exactly why a character is unsympathetic or what's confusing. Or do a more research into some of these specific problem areas and how to fix them. Stay encouraged; you've got talent and you'll get this.

CJSimone said:

I relate to not being able to judge your editing and immediate improvement in writing. Sometimes I can see improvement pretty clearly (or I'm pretty sure it's not there), but sometimes I have no idea and I'm not going to be surprised with any range of response from "impressive" to "it sucked, it's a scrap and redo." It's really hard to judge your own work.

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I should clarify that it's structural edits I struggle with more than line edits, (obviously, the hard stuff!!). My technical writing has gotten to the point where I can generally find and clean a buggery sentence, but a buggery plot? And character?

The solution to my problem: become Harry Potter.

I think when you understand why you're doing what you're doing. For myself, I don't plot, and as the years went on, I'd reach points where I'd be writing and suddenly go: "Wait, if I do that, I'll end up adding an extra x words which I don't need."

Prior to that I was just sort of feeling it out as I went. It didn't always end well.

When you understand cause and effect, and what you sacrifice for doing something new and shiny, and what you gain from the same, then writing becomes... not easier. Never easier. Just less of a grope in the dark.

For me, I knew I was improving when I started getting personal rejections from editors and agents. That means they were telling me something specific to my story (even if it was negative) and not sending a standard one-size-fits-all rejection letter. An agent even wrote, "You're getting close." When an editor asked if I had anything else to send, and invited me to resubmit to her directly, I knew I had taken another step closer to becoming traditionally published. This was a few years ago, when self-publishing was not as common as it is now.

You've gotten some good advice here. Especially about reading your own early work and comparing it to the present. I also pay attention to those in my critique group. For me, I notice that I write faster now, because I understand the form and process more than I did a few years back, so that can be another measure of growth. I think overall, like anything else, the more you practice something, the better you become.

Melody Delgado said:

For me, I knew I was improving when I started getting personal rejections from editors and agents.

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That is, of course, the standard mantra of "progression" in this enterprise: You submit and submit and submit, and get rejected and rejected and rejected, but eventually you start getting rejections which are individual, with comments about the specific submission, and, after that, you start getting things accepted.

Except that doesn't always happen. You can submit and submit and submit, and get rejected and rejected and rejected . . . . and never get any farther than that.

Then what?

caw

You either keep writing or just shrivel up and die...

laserkey said:

/.../


For those who are stuck in that rut, what is a good, reliable way to break out of it? Especially since less than 5% of manuscripts are published each year (estimated). Would you advice publishing a few articles for well-known magazines / starting a blog to gain visibility with the publishers and agents first?

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There are two fundamental types of amateur writers: those who can have anything they write published without superhuman effort, but find it difficult to write something which actually sells well or gets awards, and those who can't get anything published in the first place.

If your stuff did not get picked up instantly, nor later on, but you're dying to do this writing thing for real, then it's time to downshift, eat some humble pie, and start from the bottom, by accumulating legitimacy on a rising curve through relentless focus. Preferably with a pen name.

1. You choose a dozen (or a score) non-paying magazines, anthologies, and websites that look OK, and you read what they offer, and then you tailor short fiction for them. With iron self-discipline you make sure the story is as perfect as you can make it, the structure, the characters, the prose, the opening, the ending. If it takes two weeks to make a 1200 word story or a 700 word flash fic presentable--then that's how much it takes. A month? Two? OK. Then with the same self-discipline you craft the perfect query letter. You send it all over.

Making your stuff perfect even for no-name mags that don't pay is an investment into the future. It shows you believe in yourself; you believe that some day you'll be a successful writer, and your short stories will be collected and you don't want to be ashamed of them or pretend they don't exist. You write everything for real.

One or more of them has picked up your stuff. You now have the precedent of "being published".

2. You choose a dozen token-paying magazines, anthologies, and websites that look OK, and you read what they offer, and then you tailor short fiction for them. Perhaps even to catch submission windows for certain themed issues. You send it over.

One or more of them has picked up your stuff. Being published by each lower rung in the ladder helps you enter the next level by virtue of established precedent.

Keep researching your markets and what gives you an edge. Do they say in their guidelines what they wish to see more of? Provide it! Do they say what they are sick and tired of? Don't write it! This is not about ooh my artistic integrity is more valuable and anyway my dazzling genius shall overwhelm even the most hardened vampire-hater. This is about focusing on your technique and other skills in order to collect publication cred.

Also, the higher-paying a short fiction market gets, the more people send over stories around the upper word limit, to rake in some dough and then buy pizza with it and make belief they are old-school short story writers from 1940 back when you could make a living off this. You're not trying to break into the market for the money, but for the prestige. Sends them short-short pieces which don't take up a lot of space or a lot of budget, thus helping a bit more for the editorial decision in your favor to be taken and providing you with the coveted prestige cred.

3. You continue upward to semi-pro and pro publications, unless you hit your current ceiling earlier--for example by now Far Horizons or Aphelion take your stuff from the first try, but Grimdark or Deep Magic don't, in spite of all the little tricks you try, and you can't even squeeze into some top-tier anthology, only third-tier ones. All right, then this really is your ceiling for now.

Version A
You have a story or more out with a pro or at least semi-pro publication. Now you can look for agents for your books. The name of a respected publication in your bio will help the slush reader decide to pass your query to the actual agent and the actual agent will not unlikely give you the benefit of doubt for at least half a page more.

Version B
Your short stories have reached their current market ceiling on a lower level. You either start over, or you build from what you have now. Publication credentials of "not top-tier" kind are still good to have, but are more likely to help you with "not to-tier agents" or better yet, when you send your novel directly to the editors of indie publishers and big publisher e-arms which accept direct submissions. With any luck, your novel comes out next year and you start sulking at editors and screaming at the cover-artist. You continue working on your skills until the point when either a) you do manage to break into a top-tier short story market, or b) you write three more books for your indie publisher and on the fourth perhaps you feel you've reached a higher level and can try with agents all over again.

Version C
You say "screw it" and hole up in your volcano lair and keep working on your writing skills until your debut novel is damn well published, with or without an agent, by a damn serious publisher, and then the top-tier magazines will damn well start publishing the stories they previously rejected.

Example--gritty space opera star Neal Asher*--published short stories with various minor people, then published a badass novel with Tor, and only after that started getting published with top-tier magazines.

Version D--you keep working with small indie publishers, and second and third-tier magazines and anthologies, publishing a consistent stream of short and long fiction every year, until you suddenly realize you are now respected in these circles, have a certain readership who eagerly await your new book, and the money from all this is starting to either compliment your day job really nicely, or is even enough to retire to a cheap rural place and write full time and enjoy life. Congratulations--you have become a succesful indie pub midlister--cheers!

Pen names can be very important, because if you did not turn into a an indie pub midlister and your books sell twenty copies a year, you don't want to be branded "the author whose books don't sell". Not that you'll hide this in any future dealings with agents, but being insulated by a pen name from your "trainee books" can make publishing pros feel better as well, and allow your new book to be judged more on its own merit then on your track record.

***

Some signs you're getting better as a writer
1. Technique flexibility--you can write any scene in half a dozen different ways, not just the one.
2. Structure--the opening of the book and the opening of every chapter, as well as the endings, and also the scenes in between, are not sloppy and not falling apart but well-oiled mechanisms that keep driving the reader onward. At every single moment it's quite clear who is where doing what and why (unless the plot demands lack of clarity for a limited time), and at every single moment the reader wants to keep on reading.
3. Prose and voice--you're no longer trying to write "correctly", or "to impress Jennifer", you are writing "the way this book/story should be written" and you believe this.
4. Beta readers start to either tell you that they haven't enjoyed a book like that for a long time, or that they read it super fast, or they invest into the characters and start discussing with you why did Bob not tell Anne that it was he who blew up the monster blob from beyond infinity.

____
*From Neal Asher interview:
Q. You started to write more than 20 years ago, but till 2001 you published only short stories in small press magazines or novellas in rather obscure publishing houses. Since 2001 – and Gridlinked – you have published a new novel every year and now you are in the process of writing the 7th novel. Can you explain the turning point? What has changed more: you and your style or the audience?


A. I reached my present position by climbing the writing ladder one rung at a time with people stepping on my fingers. I wasn’t published at all for many years, then I had a few short stories published, advanced to novellas and collections and finally to Macmillan. About twenty years ago I completed a fantasy novel and ever after I was sending synopses and sample chapters to large publishers (and writing more books).
The turning point was a combination of luck and the skills I’ve learnt. By the time I sent a synopsis to Macmillan there had been a resurgence of interest in science fiction, I had attained a fairly high level of professionalism, and when I sent in my synopsis it was accompanied by excellent reviews of my small press work. The timing was just right, since Peter Lavery at Macmillan was looking for SF & fantasy writers to increase his list.
Perhaps a review of The Engineer from the national magazine SFX, which I put on top of they synopsis and sample chapters (of Gridlinked) helped, as did the website I had created which put on display all my other work.

Look at your older work. If it's crap, and you can explain why it's crap, then you're getting better.

I think we all get better at what we do. It's a basic premise of physiology, why shouldn't apply here?

If you want to get better at writing - write. I think reading a lot helps too.

Dig up something really old - you will know haha!

I read some shit I did years and years ago.

To be quite frank, I was ashamed! It is what is though.

It's the old "conscious competence" thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence

Management gurus say that there are four stages of learning any new skill. At first we're rubbish at it, but we don't know that we're rubbish. We don't yet know what good looks like. This is unconscious incompetence. We suck, but we don't know it.

After a while we start to realise that we're not as good at this thing as we thought. We start to see problems with our own work. Many people give up at this point. This is conscious incompetence. We suck and we know it.

If we stick at it, we improve. It isn't exactly 100,000 hours or 100,000 words. It's whatever it takes to learn the skill. Then we slog our way through being quite good but it takes a lot of effort. It doesn't yet come naturally. This is conscious competence. We don't suck as long as we concentrate.

Finally, we get to a point where the skills are ingrained and second nature. We can do this thing without really having to try too hard. This is unconscious competence. We have to try hard to suck.

How do we know when we're getting better? If we can spot problems in what we're writing, that probably means that we've passed through unconscious incompetence and we're into conscious incompetence. Realising that we suck is a good thing. It's a lot better than not realising it ;-)

Once! said:

It's the old "conscious competence" thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence

Management gurus say that there are four stages of learning any new skill. At first we're rubbish at it, but we don't know that we're rubbish. We don't yet know what good looks like. This is unconscious incompetence. We suck, but we don't know it.

After a while we start to realise that we're not as good at this thing as we thought. We start to see problems with our own work. Many people give up at this point. This is conscious incompetence. We suck and we know it.

If we stick at it, we improve. It isn't exactly 100,000 hours or 100,000 words. It's whatever it takes to learn the skill. Then we slog our way through being quite good but it takes a lot of effort. It doesn't yet come naturally. This is conscious competence. We don't suck as long as we concentrate.

Finally, we get to a point where the skills are ingrained and second nature. We can do this thing without really having to try too hard. This is unconscious competence. We have to try hard to suck.

How do we know when we're getting better? If we can spot problems in what we're writing, that probably means that we've passed through unconscious incompetence and we're into conscious incompetence. Realising that we suck is a good thing. It's a lot better than not realising it ;-)

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Rofl, I'm definitely in the first stage

To add to Once!'s excellent summation of the stages of competency--

Because of that indefinable thing called talent, it's possible to start at a higher stage of competency in some areas but a lower stage in others. If you have a gift for dialogue, for instance, you're probably already writing dialogue at stage four, but you may also struggle with description, so that's a stage two skill.

AustinF said:

Rofl, I'm definitely in the first stage

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Well, hey, now. You kinda contradicted yourself. I know you were being facetious, but knowing that you're in that first stage is a very good thing. Knowing that you're not meeting---and, of course, exceeding---your expectations is a very good step in the right direction. This is the incentive to try harder and to pay more attention to the words you put on the page. Keep reading great literature. Keep reading bad literature. Figure out for yourself why you feel a specific way about the books/short stories that you read and understand where your muse and creative impulse takes you and with honing your craft, you'll improve like you wouldn't believe.

Keep going!

I remember being encouraged to write a memoir about a particular period in my life. I kept hearing "But you have a great story. You really should write a book about that time."

I demurred. True, I could write short blog postings reasonably well, but was afraid of being able to string together longer threads that actually would pull a reader along. Finally, the encourager said "You write it, and I'll edit it."

We both made a huge mistake - he had no idea how much work he was going to take on, and I was to discover my fears were justified. The final product, though not bad, was no prize winner either. When I read it today, five years after publication, I understand how poorly it was written.

As the urge to write again took hold, I decided to do what I should have done the first time - take some classes in writing - buy books about writing - have a professional editor read my work. That has paid rewards. In comparing the old writing with the current, I can see marked progression - and have had some folks tell me so.

For me I can feel if I am getting better, or do what everyone else says and look at your old work.

I'm getting better at procrastinating. That must mean something.

celticroots said:

I am familiar with having to write 100,000 bad words before you write anything good. How do you know you're work is getting better? That you're getting a better grasp on the craft? Especially if you want to have a novel published but have no previous publications. I've been writing for over a decade.

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When you start to understand how and why things work.

Gateway said:

When you start to understand how and why things work.

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I am soooooo dooooooooooomed.

caw

blacbird said:

I am soooooo dooooooooooomed.

caw

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If that is what it means to be doomed, can I be doomed too please?

I'm still confused by shoelaces. And I suspect I always will be.

I just pulled out and read the original drafts from 15 years ago.

I know I'm better than that. How? By reading them

Bufty said:

I just pulled out and read the original drafts from 15 years ago.

I know I'm better than that. How? By reading them

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Yes, old stuff can be very illuminating.

Gateway said:

When you start to understand how and why things work.

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I dunno, I've noticed that when successful authors try explain what they do and how, it comes out as gibberish, while people who can explain vastly better how things work and why, do not become very successful fiction writers.

John Gardner is terrific at explaining how things work and why, but his novels are super dense allegorical literary fiction with fifteen fans per continent. While when for example Stephen King tries to explain what makes good writing tick he appears to suddenly lose a hundred IQ points.

It may very well be pretty rare to both be a successful writer AND understand how and why things work. Could be more of a subliminal intuitive grasp that evolves over time.

Perhaps you can only grasp the mechanics cerebrally when you're looking at them from the outside, as a critic and a thinker, and not an actual full-time practitioner.