You don't know if you understand business. Book knowledge has nonzero value, but it doesn't have the value of experience. Do you have any quotes from the people who said that you should craft your work toward publishers? Your assertions throughout this thread feel very much like a strawman. You're arguing with someone who says that you should suppress your creative impulses and focus entirely on what a publisher wants. That someone, as far as I can tell, doesn't exist in this thread.
This is the point where it becomes clear that you know you're losing this argument. I'm going to let you let you thrash around and declare victory for a while. I'm done with your part of this thread. Feel free to ignore my last question; I won't be responding to your responses.
Yeah, this is the point when I know I'm losing this argument, when I tell you to check the first page. Sorry, buddy. And I didn't say that at all. Now you're making shit up. I'm suggesting that you shouldn't worry about publishers or money when learning to write, or even drafting up your first novel, because it can hinder creativity. Only cheapskates fabricate things to win arguments.
Hmmm I am not quite good at debating at all and so if I say anything that is viewed as ignorant or odd, I apologize in advance. My skill and opinions in heated arguments such as these aren't quite up to the same caliber as the others. But I understand where your coming from when you're speaking of money limiting being creative.......I don't know if you're right. I'm sure there is truth to that as it is with all creative fields that you could be pushed into making something that's like more....mainstream I guess? And let me admit this now to everybody. I am not an expert in the publishing business, I have only done so much research on it up to this point as I am focusing on improving my writing and this thread is long soooo I couldn't exactly read everything As my good pal @123456789 said Everything he said about learning to write and how publishers or well sending it around and stuff can be a great way of measuring your skill level. Heck even if your work isn't some high class piece of literature fiction. I'd say it still needs to be of some sort of well written and or readable quality. Because ....I do concur a lot is subjective but only to a certain point. Learning to write well in general is just as important as learning to craft your story, characters, world and all of that. Because a great writer or a writer who learned to write like that will be able to translate all that I listed above into their writing, send your stuff around to publishers, give it to friends, give it to harsh critics, give it to family, give it to softer critics, even strangers sometimes and let them read it. They will help you improve. Yes, someone will always hate what you write and yes a lot of people don't care about published but if you're truly passionate about writing (and I don't mean you Mad, just speaking in general) then you'll listen to others advice, you'll take the critques, you'll take the rejections and you will improve. The more you fail, the more you open your mind to what others say then the more you will see your writing skill all round improve and even when you finally break in (if you're interested in getting published) then there is even more ways to improve yourself I'd imagine. @EdFromNY I really did think your post was wonderful and offered great insight. I don't think it was anything like it was an unopposed authority of will p) but I found it worth thunderous round of applause. You're dead on when saying there are lots of different ways to make it as a writer. Your post had a lot of insight of someone who was interested in our field long before I was born and the things you said like know your goals, objectives, know your antagonist and all that. That might seem like obvious rules but I think us younger writers can get a little ahead of our selves and forget to do some of that basic ground work. But yeah And finally I'll cut this short now because I know its long .....a lot longer then I expected and I really think everybody has done an excellent job of talking about how they view writing and publishing. But Mad and forgive me if this is out of line but I don't think sarcasm and blow kiss smiley faces really solves anything in a debate like this. And some of this debate confuses me.....not gonna lie (though might be cause I didn't read everything) BUT still! Maybe you shouldn't worry about writing for money or a publisher but on the reverse side it doesn't hurt to take it into account at all. I think the real first step to success in the arts or maybe even anything is taking in the advice of others and integrating it with your own, always let yourself grow. Now ....that was long and I'm sure it can be picked apart. And sorry if it came off bad as I'm pretty rusty and translating my heartfelt opinions in situations such as these. But I hope I helped somewhat.
This is a really weird example for you to bring up - it seems like a pretty good argument for the opposite of what you're trying to say, really. Because Michelangelo and the vast majority of his buddies in the Renaissance created some of their greatest works under the patronage of the church. Are you really saying their creativity was sub-standard? It's the damn Renaissance! Or for more literary examples, how about Shakespeare, writing to please whoever was on the throne and the crowds at The Globe. Bah. Shakespeare. What a hack. Or Dickens, or any of the countless other incredibly creative authors who also worried about finding an audience for their works. You've added "when you're learning to write" to your argument, which at least limits it somewhat. But I still don't see why it would make sense to learn to write in a way that wouldn't enhance your chances of publication, assuming publication is your ultimate goal.
I really didn't want this to start up again, but ... I'm not talking about great artists. I'm talking about boundaries. Those people lived in a different time when the church dictated a lot of creative process. A lot of those artists made other works just as good, but had to keep them under wraps which would usually mean they were lost in history. Not to mention, people of that time were very pious, so their inspirations would have naturally come from such things. I used it as an analogy to exemplify boundaries, not to compare contemporary writers to genius artists. I don't think publishers were quite a tampering factor of Shakespeare's era, do you? Besides, Shakespeare might have created work for the throne, but the throne didn't tell him what to create. He wrote, and people loved his work. Of course, his work was tailored to the times, but that's just the way writing is. You can't compare people in those eras to now. It's absurd and irrelevant. When learning to write has been part of my argument since the start. You should go back and check. If I want to get published, I'll pick a market, study some of it's pre-existing work, create a clone, and pawn it off to any publisher that bites. But I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in writing a draft that I can hold in my hand and think, finally, the story I've always wanted to tell. I don't betray that. This debate is now over. I won't be replying any more.
You think the nature of creativity has changed over the years? Those people could be creative within boundaries and create incredible work, but people today can't do that, because... creativity has changed? Or some other reason? Creativity is creativity. A writer can create a beautiful, creative, perfect poem that follows the tight strictures of the English sonnet form, or a beautiful, creative, perfect poem that is in free verse. It may take a bit more skill and discipline to learn the rules of different forms, but I don't think either skill or discipline is a bad thing for a creative person to possess.
I know this threat might be a little silly since in a way the two worlds are connected but please read this first... The reason why i post this is because some work that gets major attention like "Twilight", "50 shades of grey" and a similiar work that met similiar success was "AFTER" by Anna Todd...Get its share of heavy criticism of some serious lack of substance and dare i say overall writing quality... Yet, all things considered the authors behind these type of works, for all their flaws, managed to reach a status most work their whole life only to have modest apreciation by comparison... Its often said that a writer's job is to capture the emotions or attention of its readers with their work...If i have a work that everybody wants to read but most critics say it lacks any real quality...Am I still failing as legitimate author even though i've done what I was supposed to do which is getting people interested in what i wrote?? As na author, writer or person in any creative field...Would you rather have successful works that lacked quality or the other way around??? Be honest...
Well you need to keep in mind that people's definitions of "quality" will vary from person to person. I think that you're a success when you're satisfied with your own work; when you know you worked yourself to the bone to finish something to the best of your ability. Even if it's not popular, and even if it's hated by many, as long you're satisfied with it that's truly all that matters, and if others can find enjoyment and satisfaction in your work as well then that's a bonus.
Again it's something that's not mutually exclusive, and I don't think they need to be weighed against each other. There's also taste to be accounted for. I know that most of my work will probably never be terribly commercially successful, and frankly I don't expect it to be critically well-received either, so I guess I'm willingly going with 'neither'.
Please dont say both...I know in an ideal world both options would be perfect... The whole point in this is to pick one option over the other and explain why... These type of threads may be random but i get a kick out of them DD
'Writing contests' isn't the right sub-forum for this so I've moved it. For me, it depends on the extent of commercial success and the extent of bad reviews. I'd rather sell 10,000 and have a few bad reviews than sell 100 and have all great reviews. But I'd rather have 100 sales and all great reviews than 10,000 and all bad reviews. If I sold 1,000,000 and got trashed by reviewers I'm sure I could wipe my tears with a few bank notes and cheer up fairly swiftly. In the most likely scenario--average sales and average reviews--sales would be more important to me, because that will be a greater influence on whether I get further book deals or not.
Sounds sellout-ish, but first my first book commercial success. My dream is to be a full time writer and commercial success would allow me to do that and improve with book two.
I really want to say good reviews are more important . . . . . . but it would be nice to recoup my costs. I've been working on my historical fiction novel for several years, and a lot of times that meant not taking on paying gigs, plus everything spent on research (subscriptions, buying other books, etc). Otherwise, I'd say reviews.
Commercial success. Reviews are just a tool - lots of people will like a book and never review it, lots of people will hate a book and never review it. They help lead to commercial success, but other than that I don't really care about them.
I don't have any plans to be published, so at the moment I just want my readers to enjoy my work. That's when I'm most satisfied. I've always been the type where I work hard at exhaustive work to pay the bills, and do creative & artsy things in my off time for sheerly my enjoyment and others' entertainment. So I'm sure that would mean, should I ever feel inclined to be published, good reviews I suppose? I would be satisfied if my audience enjoyed it, regardless of monetary gain or literary acclaim (although I will never snub my nose at either, if they were offered me).
Well it is simple really if you have been paying attention to what is trending. 1. Write a pile of dog shit (sorry to Fantasy writers but it seems to be your genres that seems to get the most attention in this case lately) 2. Be just not dog shit enough to gain a "cult following", with bland characters+bland romance. 3. (I really don't know?) 4. Bath in all the cash for being a tacky tasteless author. Damn it, I would fit this if I had only written an Urban Fantasy novel. On the other hand I am part way there, as most find my writing dog shit when it comes to grammar. Perhaps I can be the worst Sci-Fi dog shit author, and be just as good as Twilight. Wait no, no, no. My characters are too well written to be that bad. Spare a five for a poor lad?
