Again, Why Talented Writers Fail & Prostitution

Let's assume that a writer with talent follows Heinlein's Rules For Writing to the extent that a novel is eventually written and put on the market. Why does the strong chance exist that this writer will still fail? For two reasons, really. He's making a mistake on rule one, and he isn't following rule six.

But wait, you say, there are only five rules: 1. You must write. 2. You must finish what you write. 3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order. 4. You must put the work on the market. 5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

True enough, but there is a sixth rule, placed there by Robert J. Sawyer. It's an important rule, an essential rule, and should be a "goes without saying" rule, but apparently it isn't. More on this rule later. For now, let's talk about rule one.

You must write. Fine, but if you only write half an hour at a time every three weeks, good luck to you. If it takes you five or seven, or ten years to finish that first novel, good luck to you. Most of us really do have a million words of garbage covering our layer of gold, and it's awfully tough to get these millions words of garbage out of the way when me make writing a low priority item, and only write whenever we feel like writing.

Maybe worse, when you only write every now and then, when it takes forever to produce that first novel, you're putting an awful lot of eggs in one basket. Worse yet, you're expecting a first effort to be good enough to sell. Maybe it will be. Miracles happen, and some incredibly few writers have more talent than mortal man should be allowed. But for every first novel that sells, tens of thousands simply are not good enough. Even most highly talented writers have to write two, or four, or six novels before digging through the garbage and reaching the gold.

To put this another way, writing is like just about anything else in that you more you write, the better you get. Talent is involved, but so is skill, and skill comes from practice, not from birth.

But, fine, you eventually finish a novel, which rule two says you must do, you stop tinkering with it and decide it's good enough, as rule three says you must do, you put it on the market, as rule four says you must do, and you keep it on the market, as rule five says you must do. But it doesn't sell. What went wrong?

Rule one went wrong, and so, in a very real way, did rule two. It's a first effort, and while on incredibly rare occasions, first efforts can sell, expecting a first effort to sell is just not very wise. I can't think of another field on earth, even in the arts, where anyone would expect a first effort to sell, to be good enough to compete against the best in the world. Does a painter expect the first canvas he slops paint on to bring him cash? No, of course not. Does a pianist except to be paid the first time he makes it through Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4? You know he doesn't.

To be truly effective, we need to modify these first two rules just a bit. Rule one now reads: 1. You must write frequently. This doesn't mean you must write eight hours per day, seven days per week, but it does mean that if you aren't making some time to write several days per week, you're asking to fail Rule two will now read: 2. You must finish what you write in a reasonable time. Again, this does not mean you have to finish a novel in thirty days. It does mean that you can't take five or six years and expect to compete against the best.

Now, just a minute on rules four and five. Putting a novel on the market also means using some smarts. This means learning how to write a good query letter, learning how to write a good synopsis, and doing the required research and reading it takes to target the right agents and/or the right publishers. It's amazing how many goof right here. They think a shotgun is as good, or better, than a rifle, and they're dead wrong.

Okay, time for Rule Six. Robert J. Sawyer added this rule, and it's usually essential. It's a simple rule, but one far too many writers ignore. It's this: 6. Start Working On Something Else.

As I said, this should be a "goes without saying" rule, but legions of writer fail right here. With enormous hubris, they believe a first effort is good enough to sell, and spend years trying to sell it, which is fine, if they're also writing more novels during these years. Simply put, if you haven't written at least two more novels before you run out of suitable markets for the first novel, you're setting yourself up for failure.

When you finish that first novel, after all that hard work, you may need to unwind, to relax, to refill the well you've drained dry. Fine. Good. You should take a break. You can rest and relax all you want, as long as it's for no more than two weeks. How many people do you know who get more than two weeks vacation each year? Not many, right? You shouldn't get more than two weeks, either. After two weeks you aren't resting and recuperating, you aren't refilling the well, you're being lazy and goofing off. So get your butt back in the chair and get to work.

One last trap too many new, and sometimes very talented, writers fall into is self-publishing. Rather than writing more novels and putting them into circulation, they finally decide that, by God, their first effort is spectacular, and they'll just self-publish the thing. Yes, a tiny, tiny handful of self-published novels have succeeded, but, again, for every one that does, tens of thousands do not because they simply aren't good enough.

Worse, improvement usually stops right here. Down deep inside, writers know self-published novels can't be rejected, so they stop working as hard to improve as they should. You don't gain skill by simply banging out words at a computer keyboard anymore than you gain skill by simply banging away at a piano keyboard. There must be effort aimed at actual improvement, there must be a fear of failure, and there must be someone who can say this isn't good enough, you have to do this, do that, and do the other.

From my experience, self-published writers pretty much never, ever get this, and a second, or fifth, self-published novel will be as bad, or worse, than the first. I've seen ninth self-published novels that were a lot worse than the writer's first novel. When you can't be rejected, then consciously or subconsciously, it's going to make a difference. It always does.

So here are the new rules.

Heinlein's Modified Rules For Writing.

1. You must write frequently.
2. You must finish what you write in a reasonable time.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial demand.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it sell.
6. You must start work on something else immediately.

Well, and good. Now a note on prostitution, writing style. When anyone, for any reason, accuses you of prostituting yourself because you write something, usually fiction, strictly for money, call that person an idiot. That person is an idiot. And most likely an unpublished idiot. Writing for money is no more prostitution than working at a McDonald's is prostitution. About 85% of the people in this country have jobs strictly for the money. They' all rather be doing something else for a living, but they do what they have to do. That isn't prostitution, it's called character.

Such people also remind me of a woman I used to know. She weighed about four hundred pounds, and had a face that looked like it had caught fire, and someone put out the fire with a rake. One day she was walking down the street, turned a corner, and chanced on a lovely young lady of the night who was just concluding a deal with a client, who happened to be named John.

"Young woman," she said, "I would never do something like that for money!"

A surprised look on her face, the lovely young prostitute said, "You mean, someone offered!"


Sincerely,

James A. Ritchie