What WorldCon taught me about writing

No doubt. I rarely go to conventions but when I hear about a panel on Twitter, sometimes I'll look it up on youtube.

 

Also, it’s an expensive undertaking for most people. Travel costs to wherever in the world the convention is. Hotel costs (they weren’t cheap In San Jose), food, and other expenses. I suspect that almost any other promotional activity one engaged in with that same money would net more new readers than being on a WorldCon panel.

 

Look up the Harlan Ellison memorial panel from this one. That was a good one.

 

That's an interesting one. I discovered Iain Banks by listening to him talk in a con bar many years ago, and Clive Barker by listening to him read some of his stories over the hotel PA speakers. And convinced various friends to read both of them.

But we'd probably have found them sooner or later, anyway.

 

No doubt. I’d heard of Diana L. Paxson, but was compelled to get one of her books as a result of how impressive she was on a panel. But in terms of sheer numbers, I think if you’re just talking promotion the money would be better spent elsewhere.

Irrespective of the extent to which a panelist might reach a new reader, the argument “I don’t agree with what an author said so therefore they’re lying for money” is a weak, unconvincing argument.

 

And to pick up on something I think @BayView mentioned—

Telling aspiring writers what they want to hear would be telling them that simply having the ability to string words together at the level of the average published writer is sufficient would fit that bill. Anyone can learn to write words at that level of competence. It’s not hard. Learning to tell a story effectively, such that you engage readers and they keep coming back, wanting more of your work—that’s the hard part.

 

This is back to the part I was on about. "It's not hard." I think it is very hard.

In the same way, I could say, "Anyone can learn to do 75 pushups. It's not hard." Then you see someone get down and do 8 pushups on their knees, and you realize that for them, it will be very hard, and take a long time. "It's not hard," should be, "it can be done, if you go about it the right way with the right effort for long enough."

 

With anything, you have to go about it the right way to learn. But it isn't hard to learn. Absent some kind of learning disability, anyone can learn to write actual sentences at the same level of your average published writer. I don't think it would even take that long. Rejected short story and novel manuscripts are filled with people who write just fine, but are lacking something else as it pertains to crafting a story. At one point, I read between 150 and 200 submissions a quarter and it wasn't that often where I saw a manuscript and said "holy shit, this person can't even write." It happened, but it didn't happen often. Most of the rejected authors wrote just fine, but they couldn't tell a compelling story to save their lives.

 

Reminds me of my ex-girlfriend, whose stories read like fine poetry... but had no actual story in them that anyone but her would want to read.

Though she did eventually publish a kids' book about twenty years later.

 

On a few occasions I saw something like that--a story with some prose that I thought was just lovely and really made me want to buy the work. But there was either no story to it, or the story itself was handled clumsily. In those cases, the rejections would say that I was quite taken with the prose and that "in my opinion" the author needed to work on how to build a compelling story to go with it. Of course, that's just one person's opinion on the work.

 

A member of my writing group was a slush reader for Clarkesworld, one of the top professional markets for SF/F, which has won awards and published Hugo-nominated stories, etc. When we meet tomorrow night I'm going to ask her what she thinks about this (i.e. whether rejected stories were more often because the writer simply couldn't write, or because the author couldn't tell a compelling story). I'm interested to learn what she saw and will report back regardless of which side she comes down on.

 

That would be great, and thanks for that.

The slush pile might not reflect real beginners though. These people could have failed on multiple novels, or written a lot and not submitted because they weren't happy with feedback. Most people have been at it for a long time before they get their first acceptance, and I'm not so sure most people submit anything at all for a long time after they start writing.

 

True. There's no way to judge the experience level of those making the past submissions. However, if the stories are being rejected predominantly for lack of writing ability as opposed to ability to handle a story effectively, or vice versa, it does (in my view) tell us something about which is more commonly lacking in writers trying to break into the market, and therefore at least some evidence as to which one may be the more difficult skill for aspiring writers to acquire.

 

I think it's probably gonna turn out like most aspects of writing turn out - there won't be one solid answer that applies to everybody.

And we've shifted the question a bit, I think, from "what's most important" to "what's most difficult to acquire"?

 

Editors don't have to choose. There are more than enough submissions at their fingertips. They really don't have to compromise and if they do I just hope that's not a place I send work to not knowing otherwise. Good publications publish good work. A very small percentage comes from the slush pile, but when it does story and writing better both be there. And I don't think you want one to outshine the other.

I've read slush. It's rare you make it through a story and that's because of the writing. The writing is what leads you to the story. It doesn't matter if you see things differently. It's tough out there. And writing is hard. You're lucky that it comes so easily to you.

 

I’m not following how this connects to the post you’re responding to. That post didn’t refer to publications accepting work that fails in terms of either story or writing. The question is, which one most often results in a rejection? Are there a lot with good story but bad writing? Good writing but bad story? Bad both? Something else? I’d be interested to know.

 

The something else: writing is fine, there's actually a good story underlying the whole thing, but the writers ability to tell the story effectively is lacking, even though they have no trouble putting nice sentences together.

 

There is a lot of bad writing and that stops people from reading any further. So nothing else even matters if you're not a good writer. People don't get far enough to really know if there is anything there because honestly it's very easy to tell very quick what kind of work something is going to need. And more often than that it's just not worth it. Not when there are good writers with good stories. The writing matters first.

 

Yes. A quick email re: writing v. storytelling to the person I mentioned prompted: "There is a distinction, for sure. I think telling a compelling, effective story is the hardest to learn." However, I won't be able to elaborate on that or get into the reasoning behind it until tomorrow night, because that's all I have.

 

Do you guys really just not know what good writing is? I'm confused my your confusion.

 

What’s your definition?

 

I don't have the energy to keep playing right now. Good luck to you guys.

 

But no one is arguing that you can be a bad writer and succeed. The point is if you're simply competent at writing, which anyone can learn to be rather easily (in my opinion), that may be sufficient to be successful. Let's break it down:

If you're competent at writing and can tell an effective, compelling story, you have a chance to do well.

If you're competent at writing and have no ability to tell an engaging story, you're not going to do well.

If your prose shines, but you have no ability to tell an engaging story and hold a reader's interest, you're not going to do well.

If your prose shines AND you have the ability to tell an engaging story and capture your readers, then you have, on par, the best chance.

 

Aside: got to meet Tad Williams as well. How the hell did I forget him in the OP??

 

So, I’ll go with my definition.

Imagine an excruciatingly detailed plan for a scene:

John walks into a bar.
Communicate the shabby interior.
Communicate John’s nostalgia about this bar.
John is greeted by Fred, the bartender.
Communicate the fact that they know one another well, but are not friends.
John orders a drink. Some sort of old-fit drink popular in the fifties.
Fred mocks him, just barely up to the point of offense.
(Etc, etc, etc)​

That outline, IMO, is “the story”. The words and sentences and paragraphs that you use to communicate that stuff are “the writing.” To me, that’s true even if you totally skip any planning/outlining phase—you could write the “plan” after writing the scene, and thus tease apart “story” and “writing.”

There are crossover points. Did you choose to carpet the bar in AstroTurf as a plot point (story) or because of the effect that the word had on the voice of the sentence describing the bar (writing)?