It's all so arbitrary

Karen Junker said:

I'm an editor at a small publisher - and my opinion matters to the people who submit their manuscripts to me for consideration. . . . . I like your posts - you're a voicy writer and that will get you a lot farther than mere technical acuity.

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I hope you saw this, Ed.

Whaaaa???? No, my social skills being what they are, I'm amazed I didn't go that far, but...

If you do, he'll only call you Poo Poo Head.

Karen Junker said:

Whaaaa???? No, my social skills being what they are, I'm amazed I didn't go that far, but...

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Shadow_Ferret said:

It sounds to me like they're advocating not developing and instead are telling people to settle on easily achieved goals.

Are they the same sort of people who don't think kids should keep score in T-ball games?

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Oh ho, of course not. In fact, Steve Pavlina is a fan of absurdly huge goals. And he's always challenging others to develop themselves. He's probably one of the few honest self-development gurus I've ever seen, with a definite passion for the field.

The trick is to set big goals that you WANT. That way, accomplishing them is way easier and doesn't feel like work. Why do you think that I'm so interested in becoming a humorist? By all means, it's a big goal, but I want it because I love writing humor and entertaining people. There are some annoying parts, but for the most part, I'm really digging the journey.

I remember the best advice I ever got for workshopping critiques for a creative writing class I took in college. "Everyone's going to have their own opinion, their own ideas--don't try to incorporate every idea, pick through them. Take the ones you can use and dump the rest."

It goes with the fable of the man and the boy and the donkey. Trying the please us all will just yield something mediocre. So don't try to understand everyone's opinion--just take the bits you like.

Sincerely,
Mr Moe

Shadow_Ferret said:

What about reading and writing create within you a better writer? Is it just the passage of time? Practice?

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It's practice, and for some (like me), a maturing of the mind. I wrote some really terrible stuff when I was a teen/in my early twenties. I needed time to settle my brain and figure out how I really saw the world.

But practice, yes. Practice makes better, if not perfect.

however, all the practice in the world won't do you much good if you can't self-critique. If you don't know how to recognize your flaws and see where to improve them, practicing is just repeating, not improving.

Similarly, if you're not an observant person I don't think you can excel at any art. Writing is no exception. If you don't pay attention to what you're reading and if you fail to notice subtleties, word choice, etc., then you're not going to be learning much through all that reading.

How does one recognize bad writing from good, good writing from great?

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That's totally subjective. For example, I don't think there's ever been a greater piece of writing than Lolita, and Vladimir Nabokov is like a god to me. Others strongly disagree with my perspective.

I don't understand what the difference between one or the other is. Why changing this one sentence makes it better.

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Ask them for clarification! It's probably too late now, since this is a somewhat old thread, but for anybody reading it who also wants to know: Ask. You learn by asking. If you're curious and you genuinely want to know, then you ask.

It's frustrating. If I was a mechanic, I can improve. I learn what parts go where, that when this part breaks, it causes this symptom and you can learn to recognize it, and troubleshoot it.

But writing? It just all seems so arbitrary. There are no rules outside of grammar that we can learn to make bad writing good, or good writing great.

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It's not so much that it's arbitrary. It's that it's an art, not a science like mechanics. Arts allow for subjective interpretations, and so except for a few general rules (such as grammar) the rest is up to the artist and his or her audience.

You either have the gift, the talent, to recognize what's wrong and put in a new part, or you don't.

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I firmly believe that anybody who wants to develop a gift or talent can do so, if he wants it badly enough to a) learn how to be observant and b) learn how to learn. Self-education is a difficult skill to build for most folks. It's the difference between being told to put Tab A into Slot B and figuring out why Tab A should go into Slot B. Self-education requires knowing yourself well, and it requires a conscious effort to learn a new skill. That effort entails sharpening your observation.

I think I'm reaching the point where I realize I can write interesting stories, but I have no clue what the trouble spots are, where it has it's weak points, or what I need to do to improve it to the point of saleabilty.

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Get yourself a few good beta readers whose opinions you trust.

I guess I don't have a question, I'm just frustrated that I don't think I know any more about writing now, after college, after subscribing to Writer's Digest for years, after reading all the "how to" books then I did when I was started out at 15.

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Then, if you really want to improve your knowledge, learn how to self-educate. Once you know how to glean useful information from non-useful information, the world is your oyster, and you can pick up just about any "talent" you want to have.

Libbie, you rock.

I don't know how long it took you to write that all out, and paste and copy and all that. But thank you. You're the kick I needed today.

In my profile, under best piece of advice, I put 'Be teachable' It's hard when you get old like me, but it's the redundant lesson I've learned. I'm really trying hard to be teachable with writing.

When I'm writing too briefly, I think what I do is try to write what-the-story-is-like, rather than write the story. I'm forgetting that the reader's experience has to unwind in time.

To use the cooking analogy, I'd put it like this: A good reading experience is like having the cook feed me a bite at a time.

(Thx to all for this thread. Good stuff to be found herein.)